LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. _. Copyright No..___„. 

Shell jM^Wu 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




/ 



* 



THE VOICE 
OUT OF x 
THE CLOUD 

AND OTHER DISCOURSES 



The REV. B. B. HAMLIN, D. D. 



From 



the Evangelical 
harrisburg, pa. 



Press 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 



Library af C0Bgcaf% 

MAR] 9 1900 J>A«3^3 

Roglttor of Copyright* 



56157 



Copyright in the year 1899 
By The Rev. B. B. Hamlin, D. D. 



SECOND COPY, 



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CHAPTER I. 



&ty Voice ©ut of ti)e ONouiJ. 

"While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed 
them : and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." — Matt. xvii. 5. 

To what extent the transfiguration of Christ, in what 
is called the holy mount, may have had reference to him- 
self simply, as a means of advancing his own perfection as 
mediator between God and man, is doubtless a question 
worthy of a special consideration. Some have regarded 
it as a stage in the progress of the divine development in 
the manhood of Christ, as a new anointing for his mis- 
sion of teaching and doing and suffering, involving such 
an unusual exhibition to himself of his inherent glory, 
as strengthened him for final victory. But what the 
latent connection existing between this event and the 
perfection of Christ as mediator, between the light of 
Tabor and the shades of Gethsemane, between the life 
now so vigorously unfolding and the decease yet to be 
accomplished at Jerusalem ; or how far the former may 
have been preparatory to the latter, we do not now in- 
quire. Doubtless, however, some such connection did 
exist, giving to the transfiguration, even in this respect, 
a significancy profoundly deep and interesting. 

But while admitting, as we do, the bearings of this 
event upon Christ personally, we at the same time believe 
that it is not without its lessons for us ; that what is 



2 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

here so minutely and yet so graphically portrayed was 
designed, not only for the support of his immediate dis- 
ciples, but for the instruction also of the Church of God 
to the end of time. And especially are the words now 
under consideration to be regarded as vitally important. 
There is indeed, in the very frequency of repetition 
which they have received in the sacred annals, that 
which indicates them to be words of deep and compre- 
hensive import. The source whence they emanate, the 
subject to which they refer, the circumstances under 
which they were uttered, all contribute to enhance their 
value and render them worthy of a devout contempla- 
tion. And I trust that while attempting their exposition, 
I shall be encouraged by your kind attention and assisted 
by your fervent prayers. 

As our estranged humanity can only be introduced 
to the Father by the Son, so it is meet the Son should 
first be introduced to humanity by the Father. And 
connected with this ceremony is a corresponding 
grandeur which no familiarity with its incidents will tend 
in the least to abate. The place selected, a lonely mount ; 
the time, the solemn hour of night. The Master is 
engaged in prayer. Sleep is falling on the eyelids of 
the weary disciples. Presently the person of Christ is 
vested in unearthly splendor. Moses and Elias also 
appear in glory, conversing with him. Bewildered with 
delight, Peter desires to build for Christ and the heavenly 
visitants abiding tabernacles. But while he is yet speak- 
ing the radiant pavilion of the Father, cloud-like, is 
wafted over them. Moses and Elias, with Jesus, enter 
therein. Peter and his companions, James and John, 
remain without, while from out the passing cloud there 
comes to the terrified disciples a voice of majesty pro- 
claiming, ''This is my beloved Son in whom I am well 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 3 
pleased: hear him." And when the voice was passed, 
Jesus was found alone." 

In this voice out of the cloud, then, do we recognize 
that of the everlasting Father solemnly introducing to 
his disciples, and through them to all mankind, the Lord 
Jesus as the only and the absolute meditator of the new 
covenant; a transaction singularly impressive, and in 
which we find the person of Christ designated, his 
agency approved and his authority ratified. "This is 
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him. " 

I. Here then we have, first of all, the person of the 
Lord Jesus as the only and the absolute mediator of the 
new covenant distinctly designated in the words, "This 
is my beloved Son. " What then is implied in this desig- 
nation? It implies, 

i. The essential dignity of the subject to which it 
relates. This dignity is indeed indicated by all the 
circumstances of the scene as exhibited on the mount. 
The central figure in this scene is Christ. With refer- 
ence to him are all its parts adjusted. Here we see him 
standing isolated and apart from all his wonted sur- 
roundings, by every act ,and every circumstance dis- 
tinguished, the object of adoring delight to his disciples, 
the instructor of Moses and Elias, the glorified repre- 
sentatives of the heavenly world ; to all of whom he 
now demonstrates his infinite superiority, while, amid 
the darkness and solemnity of the night, that glory in- 
herent, yet by the infirmities of humanity so long 
obscured, suddenly unfolding from within, is in all its 
native effulgence revealed, shedding upon his garments a 
dazzling snow-white radiance, altering the fashion of his 
countenance, transfiguringit into the splendors of thesun. 

But the decisive words of the Father, "This is my 
beloved Son," carry with them a still more definite an- 



4 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

nouncement of his essential dignity. Especially when 
we remember that Christ is here claimed to be the Son 
of God, in that highest and most peculiar sense as imply- 
ing supreme divinity, will the transcendant personal dig- 
nity of the subject thus indicated the more fully appear. 
In this sense as implying supreme divinity, as indicat- 
ing a distinct divine personality in the unity of the God- 
head, did the Jews understand the Saviour as claiming 
for himself the title, Son of God ; and so understanding 
him, they refused to admit his claim, considering it 
blasphemy, that he being a man should thus assume to 
be equal with God. Besides the term "Son" or "Son 
of God " as applied to Christ is rather a designation of 
nature than of office, and is predicated of him, not so 
much in view of his humanity, or of what he became in 
condescension to man, as in view of his divinity, or of 
what from eternity he ever has been in his relation to 
God. It is a term indicative of all that is essential and 
peculiar to the nature of Christ as the second person in 
the Godhead, and is characteristic of his mode of exist- 
ence in the divine essence, or of that mysterious rela- 
tion from all eternity subsisting between the first and 
second persons in the ever blessed Trinity. Thus from 
this high and, by them, well understood import of the 
term, the disciples were left to infer the infinite dignity 
of the awful personage who then and there stood trans- 
figured before them. For if the Son of God, then ac- 
cording to their understanding of the term, he must be 
divine. 

Hence these words may be regarded as involving an 
authoritative recognition of the claims of Christ to 
divinity, a recognition the necessity of which seems to 
have originated in the condition of the faith of the 
Jewish Church at that period of its history. For though 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 5 

in the faith of a very few of that period the Son of God 
and the Messiah were held to be identical, yet many 
separated them, holding the Son of God to be a per- 
sonage altogether distinct from the Messiah. Neither, 
indeed, in the estimation of such, did a claim to be the 
Messiah necessarily involve a claim to divinity, as was 
held to be the case when any one claimed to be the Son 
of God. Thus we find many of the Jews believing on 
Christ as the Messiah while they rejected him as the 
Son of God, for the very moment he assumed this title 
they pronounced it blasphemy and took up stones to 
stone him. 

Just how far the disciples who were permitted to wit- 
ness the transfiguration of our Lord were the subjects of 
this delusion we know not. Of the Messiahship of Christ 
they seem, indeed, for the most part to have had very 
clear convictions. And of the existence of some being 
whom they entitled the "Son of God" they had no 
doubt. But that his awful presence was identical with 
the lowly one with whom, in poverty and in grief, they 
had been so long and so intimately associated, was a 
conviction of slower growth. This was a gradually de- 
veloped conviction, needing, in order to its complete- 
ness, reiterated proof and continual confirmation. Con- 
firmation internal they had indeed received only a few 
days previous, through the special illumination of the 
Father when, for the moment, Peter, catching a glimpse 
of his Master's inherent glory, was enabled to make dec- 
laration of his faith, not only in his Messiahship but 
in his divinity as well, exclaiming, "Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." Yet even this internal 
confirmation, consequent upon the inward revealings 
of the Spirit, was found insufficient to maintain in the 
hearts of the disciples an unwavering conviction of the 



6 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

divinity of their Lord. Hence confirmation, additional 
and external, is needed. This they are now about to 
receive in the decisive word of the Father, "This is my 
beloved Son." 

So that we are led to conceive of this voice out of the 
cloud, thus authoritatively designating Christ, as one of 
a sublime series of special revelations, granted by the 
Father of lights to these wavering disciples, in order to 
the confirmation of their faith in the real Sonship and 
consequent absolute divinity of their Lord and Messiah. 
Hitherto they had but dimly and transiently conceived 
of him as divine. Here and there a significant ray, yet 
suddenly intercepted by the shadow of the ever impend- 
ing cross. Henceforth, however, a stronger, steadier 
light is to invest his character. For even here, amid 
the mysterious circumstances of this eventful hour, the 
rays of his divinity, piercing the intercepting vail of 
humanity, beam forth resplendently. Self-luminous, he 
stands before them, all radiant in splendors celestial and 
divine. Here they are made the "eye witnesses of his 
glory," and he whom they already acknowledged as the 
Messiah is divinely identified as also the "Son of God." 
Here he is invested with the title by a voice from 
heaven, yea even by God the Father, whose pavilioned 
majesty waits to endorse the claims of filial Deity, de- 
clared to be the Son of God in a sense peculiar, incom- 
prehensible and divine. As though God, in a single 
word concentrating and confirming the burden of the 
testimony of all the ages, had said: "This is really 
and emphatically my beloved Son, whose existence you 
have so long acknowledged and to whose incarnation and 
kingdom the hopes of an expectant world have so long 
trembled. This is indeed that Son of mine whose eternal 
generation and unlimited reign I have long since spoken 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 7 

by my servant David, Thou art my Son ■ this day have 
I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the 
heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts 
of the earth for thy possession : This is that Son of 
mine who is the beloved, whose goings forth have been 
from of old, from everlasting, whom I have appointed 
heir of all things, by whom also I made the worlds, the 
brightness of my own glory, the express image of my own 
person, upholding all things by the word of his power, 
being made so much better than the angels as he hath by 
inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they, 
the immaculate, uncreated word who was in the beginning 
with me and is now made flesh and dwelleth among you 
and who, even here amid this lonely retreat and by this un- 
expected revealment of his Godhead, exhibits to you this 
glory, "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father 
full of grace and truth.''" "This is my beloved Son." 

2. In the divine designation, " This is my beloved 
Son," is implied not only the essential but also the official 
dignity of the subject to which it relates. Hence this 
designation may be regarded as involving not only an 
authoritative recognition of the claims of Christ 
to divinity, but also of his claim to the Messiah- 
ship. For though not, strictly speaking, an official 
designation, yet when we remember that, in accordance 
with the true and ancient faith of the Jewish Church, the 
Messiah was to be no other than the Son of God, it fol- 
lows that to all those who held that faith, the term 
"Son," or "Son of God," as applied to Christ, would 
convey the idea of his official relation to man as well as 
that of his personal relation to God, of his Messiahship 
as well as of his divinity. Hence the decisive word of 
the Father, "This is my beloved Son," was not simply 
a designation of Christ in his essential dignity as the 



8 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

second person in the Godhead, but also a pointing of 
him out to the world in his official character as the true 
Messiah, as the divinely recognized Prophet, Priest and 
King of all succeeding ages. It was a formal substitu- 
tion of Christ, as the representative of the New Cove- 
nant, for Moses and Elias the representatives of the Old, 
and a sublime transfer to him, as such, of all their official 
dignities and prerogatives. Hence the special signifi- 
cancy of the fact that, in the transfiguration, Moses the 
Lawgiver and Elias the Prophet of the old dispensation 
also appear in glory, conversing with Jesus; and also 
of the fact that, from out the radiant and evanishing 
cloud in which disappear these honored representatives 
of the law, comes back to the entranced disciples the 
voice of the everlasting Father distinctly designating 
Christ, who alone remains, as henceforth being to them 
the only source of instruction. As though he had said, 
" Cling not to Moses and Elias. They are gone. Their 
mission is ended. Their economy has passed away. 
This is my beloved Son. Cling to him. He remains. 
His mission shall never end. His economy will not 
pass away. Hear ye him." 

Thus when Jehovah uttered these words from the 
overshadowing cloud of His glory, He was holding up 
to the view of His disciples and through them, to the 
view of all mankind, His beloved Son as being the very 
Christ of promise, as that great central object in the 
moral universe, to which all the rays of prophecy pointed 
and in which they all should terminate. 

For we find that even the severity of that original 
curse pronounced upon man, ere he had passed the gates 
of his primeval Paradise, was ameliorated by the pro- 
phetical declaration, that the seed of the woman should 
bruise the serpent's head. Henceforth, in those dark, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 9 

dark heavens, that for ages subsequent, hung pall-like 
over the earth, one bright star was seen to glow with a 
steady and still increasing splendor. This star was the 
emblem of the world's Redeemer, which, by the breath 
of the Almighty kindled in the midnight of the universe, 
girt its dark horizon round with the genial radiance of a 
supernal light. This emblematical star the words of 
promise and of prophecy had distinctly pointed out to 
the world as its only indemnity for the loss of its orig- 
inal Paradise. To this star, the first sinning pair, ban- 
ished the bowers of Eden and the Tree of Life, had 
turned their anxious eyes and beheld written in tran- 
quilizing light their only surety of restoration to the 
favor of God and their only pledge of immortality. Still 
in the advance of the nations and adown through all the 
laggard centuries, this star led the way, while a long 
line of prophets and seers, divinely authorized and of 
its beams inspired, from many a sacred mountain, from 
lightning-wreathed Sinai, from silent Horeb, and still 
milder Zion, continued to point it out to the weary 
vision of successive generations. Thus Moses, thus 
Elijah and Isaiah, with many an intervening prophet, 
until Malachi, standing on the verge of the gospel dis- 
pensation, with eye kindled, and heart enraptured by 
his close proximity with its ever deepening splendors, 
beheld it even as the Sun of Righteousness arising upon 
the rejoicing nations with healing in His beams. 

But now this star is leading the way to Bethlehem, 
and, lured by its mystic light, wise men enter the royal 
stable, and with adoring, palpitating hearts gaze into 
the infant eye of the incarnate God. Here hope is lost 
in fruition, the emblem in the reality, and the star typ- 
ical goes out as stars are wont to do when the sun is 
risen. The desire of all nations is come ; but not in ac- 



10 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

cordance with human expectation. He comes clothed 
with humility, in the obscurity of poverty, in the help- 
lessness of want. And thus coming, innocent of the 
state and pomp and ceremony usually attendant upon 
the birth of royalty, infidelity rejects Him, disputes His 
authority, sternly contesting His right to the throne of 
David. Though from the star-lit heavens His nativity 
had been to the ears of watchful shepherds heralded by 
God's own angel, and by the cherubic choir accompany- 
ing, and over the hills of Bethlehem holding night-long 
jubilee appropriately celebrated, yet He needs a higher 
and a still more sublime endorsement. This, indeed, 
He at first receives at His baptism, in the Spirit of God 
like a dove descending upon Him, and in the voice from 
heaven proclaiming, "This is My beloved Son." But 
now the great struggle commences. For in defiance of 
the sublime attestation of His character, through the 
ministry of angels received at His birth and at His bap- 
tism from the opening heavens and the throne of God, 
infidelity still opposes His claim and disputes His iden- 
tity with the long-predicted Messiah. And, as we may 
suppose, even the hearts of His disciples, trembling in 
the darkness of ignorance, sometimes instinctively seek, 
amid the contradictions of His mysterious character, 
the foundations of a still more undoubting reliance. 
Nor do they seek in vain. For here, on this holy mount, 
these foundations are suddenly revealed. Here He un- 
covers His higher nature, and out on the bosom of 
night throws the beams of His essential glory, while 
from out the radiant and receding cloud is heard 
again the voice of complacent Deity saying, "This is 
My beloved Son." This is, indeed, the long-predicted 
Messiah, the very Christ of promise, whom many proph- 
ets and righteous men desired to see, but saw Him not. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 11 

This is He of whom Moses in the law and the prophets 
did write, and whose prerogatives He shall now assume. 
The fire of their inspiration shall henceforth and for- 
ever cease to burn,' and, in token of the glorious sub- 
stitution, Moses and Elias now appear to lay their of- 
fices and their honors at His feet. 

Hence, also, when Jehovah uttered these words from 
the over-shadowing cloud of His glory, He was holding 
up to the view of His disciples and through them, to the 
view of all mankind, His beloved Son as that great cen- 
tral object in the moral world to which referred, and in 
which terminated all the types and shadows of the for- 
mer covenant. For side by side with the prophets stood 
the priest of the ancient dispensation ; while the former 
predicted, the latter typified the coming Redeemer ; 
what the one delineated in words the other adumbrated 
in act. Thus, while the prophet touchingly predicted 
the pending tragedy of the crucifixion, representing the 
world's sacrifice as a lamb led to the slaughter, the 
priest mournfully typified the great transaction, as he 
withdrew the crimsoned blade from the heart of the 
slaughtered victim. Thus in the fire of its myriad sac- 
rifices, in the altars on which these sacrifices bled, as 
well as in the sacrifices themselves, did the ancient law 
prefigure a dispensation comprehending a nobler sac- 
rifice, a loftier altar, and the enkindling of a more de- 
vouring fire. But here is its termination. The shadow 
has been traced to the substance, the type to the anti- 
type, the symbol to the reality. And now from the 
bright and waiting pavilion of Jehovah, the long pre- 
dicted and the long typified Redeemer is distinctly des- 
ignated, to the faith of His disciples of every age and 
of every hemisphere, by a voice divine proclaiming, 
"This is my beloved Son." "This is he foreshadowed 



12 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

from of old. This is the meaning of all the past, the 
solution of all its mysteries, the substance of all its 
symbols, and that with reference to which, existed all 
its dispensations. With Moses and Elias the old dis- 
pensation vanishes ; in him the new dispensation dawns, 
a dispensation not of the letter but of the spirit, the 
transforming energy of which is even here and now in 
its transfigured Lord, to your delighted vision exhibited \ 
a dispensation in which all things shall be transfigured, 
until the saints on earth and the saints in heaven shall, 
through the revelation of the indwelling Shekinah, be 
changed into the same image, the image of the heavenly, 
and with him the only begotten, forever embosomed in 
the glory which he had with me before the world was. 
"This is my beloved Son." 

Here then, amid the sequestered heighths of this 
holy mount, stands Christ Jesus, divinely designated as 
the Apostle and great High Priest of our profession 
through all generations; a designation which, as given, 
by heaven in contradiction of the world's infidelity, shall 
be to his disciples the confirmation of their faith to the 
end of time. Thus we find that in after days, when the 
names of these disciples who were permitted to witness 
the transfiguration were cast out as evil, and the infant 
Church was struggling for existence amid the combined 
prejudices of heathenism and the cruel enactments of 
despotic power, the recollection of this consecrated 
hour spent with the Master in the holy mount rose up 
in their minds with a strange and life like vividness 
even as that of a recent event. To Peter especially it 
was as the wafting of Tabor's wondrous vision afresh 
upon his soul. The overshadowing brightness, the 
golden glory the radiant forms enfolding, the heavenly 
ministrants, their mysterious colloquy, the voice out of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 13 

the cloud burdened with its testimony to the everlasting 
Sonship and power of his transfigured Lord, all to Peter 
were an ever present reality, under the inspiration of 
which his soul caught again the impulses of its youth, 
to the world's dull ear voicing its convictions defiantly; 
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables 
when we made known unto you the power and com- 
ing of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses 
of his majesty. For he received from God the 
Father honor and glory when there came such a voice 
to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved 
Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which 
came from heaven we heard when we were with him in 
the holy mount." This vision was indeed to Peter the 
occasion of a life long self-gratulation. He never once 
seems to have been ashamed of the mistake he made 
when, even there on that bleak mountain top, and for the 
glorified immortals, he wanted to build the everlasting 
tabernacles. True, one of the Evangelists, apologizing 
for his simplicity, tells us that Peter did not know what 
he was saying but well did he know that it was good to 
be there. 

II. But in this most august and impressive intro- 
ductory ceremony, we not only have the person of the 
Lord Jesus as the only and the absolute Mediator of the 
new covenant distinctly designated in the words, "This 
is my beloved Son," but also his agency, as such, 
divinely approved in the words, "in whom I am well 
pleased;" words implying not only God's gracious dis- 
position towards the person of his Son as Mediator but 
also a most gracious acknowledgement of the divine 
complacency as resting upon his entire agency in this 
.holy and transcendent capacity. 

i. God is well pleased in his Son considered only 



14 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

as to his divine nature, as the brightness of his own 
glory, the express image of his own person. Hence 
these words must not be regarded as merely an inci- 
dental or temporary outburst of the divine complacency, 
but as heaven's deliberate and eternal estimate of the 
sublime character designated. Not once or twice or 
three times only has the sentiment of these words found 
utterance on the sacred page, but such a frequency of 
repetition has it received therein as characterizes it as 
the unalterable conviction of an infinite judgment, a 
conviction unoriginated by circumstances and depend- 
ent on no precarious tenure, and which, as thus an- 
nounced to man, becomes to him the evident token of 
a unity in the Godhead incomprehensible and of a fel- 
lowship which, clasping within its radiant embrace the 
persons adorable and divine, is the same yesterday to- 
day and forever ; so that the proposition is equally true 
whether stated in the past in the present or in the future 
time ; This is my beloved Son in whom I have been, 
now am, and will forever continue to be, well pleased. 

The divine complacency from all eternity, resting up- 
on Christ as the only begotten of the Father, is most 
forcibly expressed in that notable passage in the book 
of Proverbs. There the mind is carried into periods 
dateless, infinitely anterior to that in which the founda- 
tions of the world were laid, styled ' 'The Beginning of the 
way of Jehovah." And even in those remote and eter- 
nal solitudes, unbroken by the voice of Archangel or the 
song of seraphim, and unpeopled and unexplored save 
by the Infinite, even there, God is represented as being 
well pleased in his Son. " Then was I by him as one 
brought up with him and I was daily his delight, rejoic- 
ing always before him." And as from the beginning of 
his way his residence has been the bosom of Jehovah 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 15 

and his pavilion the light of the everlasting Father's 
smile, so onward ever shall those undarkening splen- 
dors enshrine the person of God's attested Son, while 
the hosts of his redeemed disciples, on the mount of his 
eternal transfiguration tabernacled, shall, from glory 
unapproachable, forever hear that same approving voice, 
" This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 

2. God is well pleased in his Son as assuming the 
great work of mediation, a work, the assumption of which, 
he can view with complacency in no other being. 

And here we must be permitted to survey the con- 
dition of man, both before and after his fall, in which 
we shall recognize the distressing circumstances render- 
ing this assumption necessary. 

That supreme intelligence whence all other beings 
are derived can never act but in accordance wit*h some 
law. This law we may suppose to be that original idea 
of truth and good, from all eternity lodged in the un- 
created mind. Under the controllings of this idea and 
with a view to its unlimited development, man was cre- 
ated and his habitation designated. This idea, im- 
pressed upon his nature, became to him the sovereign 
rule of all his actions and that, in obeying which, all 
the higher purposes of his being would inevitably be 
secured. Neither indeed could this original idea of 
truth and good have any possible development or tend 
in the least to the advantage of the creature or to the 
glory of the Creator in the absence of moral freedom, 
the capability on the part of man of determining his own 
actions in accordance with this idea, and thereby to the 
attainment of all those ends proper and congenial to the 
nature with which he has been endowed by the Author 
of his existence. Hence, man's conformity or non-con- 
formity with this original idea of his being was ever held 



16 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

within the compass of his own resolves. With this pre- 
rogative was he endowed either to obey or to disobey, a 
prerogative in the abuse of which he not only wrecked the 
original framework of his own destiny, but introduced 
confusion widespread and dire into the moral govern- 
ment of God. 

In order to illustrate which let it be distinctly remem- 
bered that God exercises both a natural and a moral 
government in the world, that he exercises this govern- 
ment, as in the one case so in the other, in strict accord- 
ance with certain regular and established laws which, as 
originating in his own infinite mind, become the founda- 
tion of that supreme harmony which, when they have 
suffered no infringement, must uninterruptedly and with- 
out limit, prevail. Hence it is clear that one of those 
general laws, in accordance with which God governs in 
the natural world, having been violated, confusion and 
misery must be the result. Thus philosophers tell us 
that there is a mysterious law in accordance with which 
this ball on which we live is poised in its rapid circles 
around its central orb. Suppose then this law neutral- 
ized, for one moment void. How fearful the disorder 
that must instantaneously ensue. And not in this world 
only, which would be immediately affected by it, but in 
all the worlds which, by interdepending laws, are con- 
nected with this system ; and not in this system only, 
but the confusion would become infinite, the equilibrium 
of the universe would be destroyed, and the shock of 
the increasing tumult, transferred from sphere to sphere, 
would be felt to startle the repose of the most distant 
star that slumbers in the immensity of space. And it is 
a fact, painfully attested by the experience of thousands, 
that one of the many delicate laws upon which the health 
of the human body is depending having been violated, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 17 

disorder and misery are the unavoidable consequences, 
consequences which must not only continue to exist, 
but unless arrested, actually to increase until they end 
in the dissolution of natural existence. 

Now what we have affirmed concerning those laws, in 
accordance with which the physical system of things is 
controlled, is equally true with respect to those in ac- 
cordance with which the moral system of the universe 
is governed. Thus we find that by the transgression of 
the one divine and original law, Adam introduced con- 
fusion and misery into the moral government of God. 
Neither indeed were the consequences of his crime 
limited to himself alone. It was not merely the dis- 
turbing of his own individual repose. The hereditary 
calamity cleaves to all his race. It was a shock ex- 
perienced through all that moral system with which he 
stands connected. So that even the last man, as he 
shall stand upon a dissolving world and gaze upon a 
fading, flickering, dying sun, shall feel the effect of 
Adam's transgression. 

But from our own individual experience we also learn 
that, when derangement has been introduced into any 
of these natural systems by one of the laws upon which 
its harmony is depending having been broken, some 
foreign intervention or special antidote is necessary in 
order to restore that broken law to its original power, 
and thus to reproduce health and harmony where once 
confusion and disorder reigned. Here again the an- 
alogy holds good in regard to God's spiritual govern- 
ment. This government once unsettled by the infrac- 
tion of the law upon which it is established, it embodies 
no recuperative forces, no inherent self-adjusting ener- 
gies. Confusion once introduced, it must continue to 
exist and not only to exist, but actually to increase interri- 



18 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ble and endless demonstration. Hence the necessity of 
some foreign intervention, some appropriate and effect- 
ual antidote, in order to restore to life and wonted power 
its suspended laws and thus to reproduce health and har- 
mony in the spiritual government of God. 

But here the question arises, what is this effectual 
antidote or where shall the proper remedy be found ? 
The Scriptures tell us the only remedy is blood. 1 ' With- 
out shedding of blood is no remission." But where 
shall this blood be found, in what bird or beast ? 

Turn we then in vain to that bloody ritual ordained 
of old, in vain to the sacrifices of the law. In them 
God was not pleased. For ages had the wearisome 
rights connected with Jewish altars found conscientious 
observance. But the remedial power was not in them. 
Innocent victims bled, yet bleeding brought no relief. 
The emblem of a richer provision, they existed only 
as the yearly memorials of an unpurged conscience and 
reiterated transgression. They could never make the 
comers thereunto perfect, though offered year by year 
continually. Hence it is written, "In burnt offerings 
and sacrifices for sins thou hast had no pleasure." 

Or, shall Ave seek this antidote in mortal veins ? 
Nay, for though the heart of our whole humanity were 
drained to the very drop and all poured forth a vast 
libation at heaven's shrine, it were but a vain oblation, 
powerless to atone for a single sin or to wash away a 
single stain. The blood that leaps through mortal veins 
is too foul and polluted, too gross and terrestrial. This 
must be a pure emanation, a celestial flood, such as 
courses only the veins of a God. 

What finite intelligence, then, is sufficient to realize 
the only alternative now seemingly left in the mind of 
Deity ? Either, in the fierceness of his indignation, to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 19 

break out this fractured link in the chain of created in- 
telligences, to make a total end of man, to blow out his 
suns, pull down his stars, annihilate his soul, and sweep 
this earth with the besom of destruction ; or 11 to suffer 
him to live on without hope or inducement to virtue and 
thus to perpetuate his species, whose successive genera- 
tions should only rise to be tortured through their brief 
existence by the ceaseless frenzy of desperation." 

Nay, thank God, this was not the only alternative. 
The first would have been but the mockery of his own 
designs. God had made man that he might be happy 
in his happiness, holy in his holiness, glorious in his 
glory, and this earth he had mantled with light and peopled 
with loves that it might be his home forever. And shall 
he now defeat his own beneficent purpose by crushing 
out his existence and blotting his habitation from the 
map of the universe — shall God go back? This were 
impossible. The second were a picture of horror from 
which averted even the eye of infinite Justice. For 
eternal Justice itself could not brook the thought that 
there should exist in all the infinite amplitude of time 
or space one world unblest by the light if its Maker's 
smile, or that one intelligent offspring of Jehovah's love 
should hopelessly pine in the midnight of its Father's 
forgetfulness. Hence, in the councils of infinite wis- 
dom, redemption was ordained in the hands of a Medi- 
ator. But where is that Mediator to be found, where 
that being competent to meet the immense responsi- 
bilities incident to such a character and in such a rela- 
tion involved ; where in all the universe one on whom 
as such, God the Father would set his seal of approval, 
one in whom he would declare himself well pleased? 
The insufficiency of man in this emergency needs no 
demonstration. 



20 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

But is there not a bright heaven above us, peopled 
with myriads of beneficent intelligences, to whom we 
instinctively turn when the last hope of earth has failed 
us ? Following, then, the nobler instincts of our nature, 
let us rise to the contemplation of that sublime vision 
once afforded the honored exile from the lonely Patmos. 
Lured by the voice of golden trumpet, let us with him 
ascend the holy hill. And now as we near the unfold- 
ing gates of heaven, lo, suddenly rising from a sea of 
glass clear as crystal, a throne, canopied by a rainbow, 
in sight like unto an emerald, and one sitting upon that 
throne whom to look upon is like unto a jasper and a 
sardine stone; while forth issuing from that throne are 
lightnings and thunderings and voices, and before it 
standing seven lamps of burning fire, and round it 
seated four and twenty elders, robed in white and 
golden crowns on their heads. And now, as the four 
and twenty elders cast their crowns before the throne 
and fall down and worship him that liveth forever and 
ever, through heaven's illimitable dome rolls the solemn 
anthem of the firstborn sons of light, hymning the praises 
of the Creator. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive 
glory and honor and power ; for thou has created all 
things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." 

But lo, the scene is changed and wonders new and 
still increasing rise upon our view. For behold in the 
right hand of him that sitteth on the throne a book, 
written within and sealed with seven seals. This book 
we may regard as fitly representing the gracious designs 
of God in reference to our fallen world. Wrapped 
within its mighty embrace had reposed from eternity 
the recorded councils of infinite wisdom, and the destiny 
of all living. But hark, a strong angel proclaims with 
a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the book, and 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 21 

to loose the seals thereof?" Who is worthy to fulfill 
the gracious designs of God in reference to earth, to sus- 
tain his violated law and thus to meet the emergency of 
this awful hour? I challenge the universe. If any in 
heaven or earth or hades dare the fearful incumbency 
assume, let him now come forth. 

While yet the voice of the strong angel is vibrating 
on the ears of the celestial inhabitants, I imagine the 
whole company of the innumerable angels rushing 
towards the throne. Impelled by that divine emotion 
that warms and animates angelic bosoms, they say, 
" Come, let us go, let us take the book and loose the 
seals thereof ; let us fulfill the high designs of heaven 
and thus, against its impending doom, sustain the help- 
less earth, the sinking universe. " Urged onward by this 
lofty determination all heaven, methinks, moves, simul- 
taneously moves, towards the throne. But suddenly 
the bright winged legions stop, and over the abyss of 
the future cast their inquiring gaze. They stand aghast, 
amazed, startled, shocked by the magnitude of the 
enterprise. And well might trembling seize upon the 
baffled ranks of heaven. For should all the angels of 
light successively descend to earth, and were it possible, 
individually to suffer a sacrifice for mortal transgression, 
even to the extinction of the last vital spark of ethereal 
fire, it could not avail for the atonement of a single sin. 

But now methinks, one more bold than the rest, 
makes his appearance. It is one of these high Arch- 
angels that keep vigil from heaven's eternal towers, to 
secure against hellish invasion that land of peaceful 
and perpetual delights. High upon his brow he bears 
the insignia of his celestial precedency. He is clothed 
with a cloud, and a rainbow is upon his head ; his 
face is, as it were, the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. 



22 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

He has great power and the heavens are illuminated 
with his glory. He approaches the throne and, with all 
the magnanimity and ardor of his seraphic nature, ex- 
claim : "Here am I, send me ; I will take the book and 
loose the seals thereof." But methinks Jehovah, rising 
upon his throne, unvails scarce half the grandeur of his 
Godhead. The Archangel veils his face. Clouds of 
tangible glory in magnificent foldings hang, in living 
drapery, the palace of God ; the lamps before the throne 
burn brighter; the thunders break in louder peals ; the 
lightnings gleam more terribly, and heaven to its farthest 
centre quakes, while Jehovah answers, "Thou vain, 
presumptuous, yet noble power; vain is thy attempt, 
presumptuous thy hope, yet noble thy aim. Thou art 
not worthy. Though of all that bear the impress of my 
creative skill thou art the first, the eldest born of all the 
sons of light, though thou wast with me when, in the 
beginning, responsive to my word, evolved out of night 
and chaos the now imperilled earth; when first uprose 
its towering mountains and lengthened out its expansive 
plains ; though thou wast with me when first I built up 
this awful temple of immensity, and in the blank spaces 
kindled yonder sun with all the dazzling hosts of heaven, 
yet thou are not worthy to open the book or to loose the 
seals thereof. Thou canst not steady the pillars of 
justice nor prop this endangered throne. Thou canst 
not turn eternal vengeance into mercy, or drink the bit- 
ter cup of my indignation. One drop of that sad 
cup would sink thee as deep in hell as thou art now 
high up in heaven. Nay, Archangel, though thou art, 
thou canst not conquer death, illumine the grave, or to 
an exiled race reopen the way to the tree of life and the 
joys of a recovered paradise. -Thy arm is too short." 
But now methinks a deep and all-pervading silence 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 23 

reigns in heaven. Seemingly all hope has fled. A 
dreadful suspense, as though the burden of no common 
doom had checked the general pulse of joy, gives om- 
inous import that all is lost. In heaven this silence is 
universal. During this awful interval every pinion is 
folded,' every harp is unstrung and naught is heard save 
the soft vibrations of heaven's suspended music as from 
invisible heights its subdued strains float out on the in- 
finite expanse and are echoed back over the plains of the 
celestial Canaan or perchance some lone, lingering an- 
them as it climbs the steeps of vast eternity or sympho- 
niously dies on the ear as it reverberates amid the golden 
mountains that rise away in the distance like luminous 
towers to guide the way to the home of God. While far 
exterior to the bounds of space are seen the dominions 
of the damned, regions dark and volcanic, spouting forth 
their vengeful fires and from all their lurid' realms the 
smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever ; 
whence also, like the distant thunderings and clanger of 
war to a peaceful city, rolls up to heaven the confused 
murmurings of hell's infernal council convened to baffle 
the designs of God; while yonder in mid-distance the, 
struggling palpitating earth lies weltering in her woe 
stretching forth her hands imploringly with the cry of 
her suffering unsaved millions rising in moving accents 
to the ear of mercy. 

But in heaven all is silence and dreadful suspense. 
And when heaven fails the forlorn, where then is hope? 
Then says, John, "1 wept much because no man was 
found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to 
look thereon. And surely in such an hour of dread un- 
certainty an angel might weep. Must then hope yield 
to despair and the unredeemed earth to irretrievable 
ruin ? Must the wisdom of heaven be baffled and the 



24 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

triumph of hell completed? Is there no help? Is there 
no pitying eye? Is there no redeeming arm? In the 
last extremity, is God a failure ? But John dry up your 
tears and weep no more. Angels, let your mourning be 
turned into praise, your sorrow into joy. Sing, sing, O 
ye heavens. Shout, shout ye lower parts of the earth ; 
break forth into singing ye mountains, O forest and every 
tree therein. For, "Behold the Lion of the tribe of 
Juda the root of David, hath prevailed to open the 
book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I be- 
held and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four 
beasts and in the midst of the elders stood a Lamb as it 
had been slain." And he comes and takes the book out 
of the right hand of him that sitteth upon the throne. 
And as he approaches I hear him say, "Sacrifices and 
offerings and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou 
wouldstnot neither hadst pleasure therein. Lo, I come, 
in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy 
will O God/' while from the throne responsive comes a 
voice, "Thou art my beloved Son, mine elect in whom 
my soul delighteth in whom I am well pleased." 

And now as he approaches and takes the book out 
of the right hand of Him that sitteth on the throne, that 
dread silence that had hitherto hung upon harp and 
tongue and seraphic pinion, is at once and forever broken. 
All heaven expresses its astonishment and joy in one new, 
simultaneous shout of thanksgiving and praise to God 
and the Lamb. The song of creation, which erst we 
heard, is now lost in that of redemption. A higher note 
is sounded. "And they sung a new song. " Once it was 
the anthem of praise to God as Creator, now hosannas 
to the Lamb as Redeemer. With a new and peculiar em- 
phasis, the four and twenty elders tuned their harps and 
led the solemn choir, saying, "Thou art worthy to take 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 25 

the book and to open the seals thereof : for Thou wast 
slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood." 
Then, from innumerable legions, from ten thousand times 
ten thousand and thousands of thousands rolled back 
the deep response, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain 
to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength 
and honor and glory and blessing." But the song was 
not confined to heaven. 

' ' Swift through the vast expanse it flew, 

And loud the echo rolled ; 
The theme the song the joy was new, 

'Twas more than heaven could hold." 

It flew from sun to sun, from star to star, from world 
to world, until in the glad chorus the whole creation 
joined, until from heaven, earth and sea blended the 
voice of jubilant millions, saying, "Blessing and honor 
and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the 
throne and unto the Lamb forever." 

Thus is God well pleased in His Son as assuming 
the great work of mediation, a work, the assumption of 
which, He could view with complacency in no other 
being. 

No less, however, is God well pleased in His Son as 
having perfectly accomplished the great work of medi- 
ation, as having thrown open wide the door of mercy to 
all mankind and rendered possible a dispensation of 
saving grace to every individual of the human family. 

The mediatorial orifice, as assumed by Christ, was no 
sinecure. Its assumption involved the placing of Him- 
self under obligations of great and inconceivable magni- 
tude, the obligation especially to do the whole work of 
a mediator, to meet to the utmost the claims of God and 
the necessities of man ; in order to do this, to make 
Himself of no reputation, to take upon Him the form of 



26 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

a servant and be made in the likeness of man — to be- 
come incarnate to teach, to do, to suffer, to die, to yield 
up His life a sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfac- 
tion for the sins of the whole world — that being found 
in fashion as a man, He should humble Himself and be- 
come obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 

Not all this, however, without corresponding as- 
surance on the part of the Father that to Him, as medi- 
ator, should be granted all needful assistance for the ac- 
complishment of His great undertaking, the threefold 
office of Prophet, Priest and King, the unmeasured dis- 
pensation of the Holy Spirit, the assurance, especially, 
that to Him as the reward of His fidelity should be 
given "the heathen for His inheritance and the utter- 
most parts of the earth for His possession," with the 
pledge that to all them also, who, with repentant faith, 
would accept Him as their Saviour should be granted 
the favor of God, the forgiveness of sins with an heir- 
ship to an inheritance of eternal glory. 

So stands the contract. Have its terms been com- 
plied with ? This is what I want to know. Have the 
obligations, so graciously assumed by Christ in man's 
behalf, been fully met? Answer, ye angels of light. Ye 
stood nearest the throne, when, in the presence of the 
Father, He engaged to become the surety of our fallen 
race and have seen with what fidelity He has met His 
responsibilities as such. Ye sung his nativity over Beth- 
lehem's hills, and from the starlit heavens with gratu- 
latory strains heralded His coming in the flesh. Ye 
ministered to Him, when, in the wilderness He hungered 
and comforted Him as in the garden of sorrows he drank 
the wormwood and the gall. Ye saw His last agony and 
heard His last cry as, on the cross, attesting His own 
fidelity, He exclaimed, "It is finished." Ye testified to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 27 

His fidelity as ye rolled back the stone from the door of 
the sepulcher, and with rich hosannas, escorted Him up 
to the portals of glory and welcomed Him back to His 
everlasting throne. 

Yes, thank God, He came and to the utmost of 
heaven's requirements paid due obedience. He met the 
responsibilities of His great undertaking and failed not 
in a single particular. And to all this, we have not only 
the testimony of Christ as given from the cross and of 
the ministering angels and of all nature as well, but the 
very sublimest endorsement of which heaven, even, is 
capable the endorsement of God Himself. For, even 
here, in this holy mount, as if in generous anticipation 
of the glorious issue of His mediatorial struggle and as 
if to debar forever the possibility of a doubt, God, the 
Father, answers, "This is My beloved Son in whom I 
am well pleased." His interposition for the salvation 
of the world I approve. To all His work of teaching 
and doing and suffering I now conspicuously and amid 
these complacent splendors, set my eternal seal. I am 
satisfied. Henceforth I hold nothing against these sheep 
returning unto the Bishop and Shepherd of their souls. 
I acquit them, I absolve them, I set them free. "This 
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 

Here, then, my brethren, I found my hopes of heaven, 
my expectations of bliss eternal. On this rock I stand. 
Christ has undertaken to save me. For my life he stip- 
ulated, when He engaged to become my mediator and 
surety before the throne. That for His sake, I, be- 
lieving in His name, should be saved, was a part of the 
contract, one of the very things for which provision was 
made in the great economy of grace. His undertaking 
in my behalf is no failure. He has done His part and 
done it well. The Father approves Him, attest the va- 



28 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

lidity of His interposition, declares that in Him He is 
well pleased. And thus well pleased in His Son, what 
can He do, but give eternal life to me, believing in His 
name ? He cannot deny Himself. Thus in Christ, by 
a living faith, God is well pleased with me. I share 
with Christ in the Father's complacency. His favor 
rests not simply on Christ, but upon all them also that 
are His. "He that loveth Me, shall be loved of My 
Father." Thus, in the Son, I dread not the Father's 
displeasure ; I fear not His frown. I have found a cov- 
ert from the storm, a shelter for my defenseless head. 
To this refuge I fly. 

III. But in this most august and impressive intro- 
ductory ceremony, we have not only the person of the 
Lord Jesus designated and His agency approved, but 
His authority as the only and the absolute mediator of 
the new covenant divinely ratified. "Hear ye Him." 
Absolute authority is here claimed for Christ, and His 
right to universal dominion confirmed. To Him, as the 
divinely appointed Lord and Ruler of all things in heaven 
and earth must all submit, and to His word give heed. 
"Hear ye Him." "The Lord thy God will raise up 
unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy breth- 
ren like unto Me ; unto Him ye shall hearken." "And 
when the voice was past Jesus was found alone." 



CHAPTER II. 



W^t ihttpulse of tfje l^to JBtepensiatfon. 

"For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and 
heard." — Acts iv. 20. 

The period in which we live may be characterized 
as one of vast and varied impulses. Latent forces are 
everywhere at work, stimulating to action and to en- 
terprise. The world is in motion, its head, its heart, its 
hand. On earth and ocean restlessness prevails. The 
age is intensely alive, throbbing with vitality, in all 
things, struggling to break away from the bondage of the 
old and in the new to realize freedom and enlargement. 
It were well, perhaps, sometimes to trace these impulses, 
their character, their tendency, to find out if we can 
whence they come, whither they go, to inquire as to the 
direction in which they are bearing us, and to what goal. 
Some, indeed, are comparatively slight, varying and short 
lived, others, however, more deep, earnest and abiding. 
Of these some aresimply commercial, tending through the 
development of material resources, to the accumulation 
of exorbitant wealth ; some are political, tending to the 
modification of the form or to the direction of the affairs 
of civil government ; some are tending to deep philosoph- 
ical research, to the study and interpretation of nature 
and to the solution of vast scientific problems, and yet 
others to organization and to effort with a view to high 
social adjustments and reform. By these varied im- 
pulses, as some great ship by tidal waves, the world is 

29 



30 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

lifted up and carried forward over the shoals and reefs 
that intercept its way to the distant harbor. 

Underlying all, however, is an impulse yet more com- 
manding and decisive, with a goal far more brilliant and 
comprehensive, a sort of mighty ground swell in the 
ocean of life, the limits of which have never yet been de- 
termined. This is an impulse which communicated to 
our nature in its profoundest depths, leaves untouched no 
capability to which that nature is an heir, in type and 
quality distinguishable from all others, whether com- 
mercial, political, scientific or social, deeper, broader 
than all, yet out of which they spring, and from time to 
time receive a new impetus and a new unfolding. This 
is an impulse of all the grandest and the most abiding, 
exhaustless, through invisible supplies, and which, at a 
time far back in the history of the world, seizing sud- 
denly upon our humanity has, through all the interven- 
ing centuries, kept its hold upon the hearts of men, ele- 
vating and expanding them, imparting to them a new 
vigor and a new hope. 

The reality of the impulse thus indicated, will, I 
think, hardly be questioned. The evidences of its exist- 
ence are to all intelligent observation, convincingly con- 
spicuous. That away back in the past, and yet at a time 
comparatively recent and accurately defined, there did 
set in upon the world's weary heart a wave of myste- 
rious influence under which suddenly our nature started 
forth into a higher and a broader range of thought and 
feeling and action than any to which it had hitherto at- 
tained is a fact to which all subsequent history bears 
unmistakable testimony. How, otherwise, indeed, than 
on the supposition of some such living, forever abiding 
impulse imparted to and swaying characteristically the 
souls of men, is it possible in any way rational to ac- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 31 

count for what is recognized as Church history, that 
uninspired record of inspired events, that marvelous 
portrayal of a new departure of the sudden diversion of 
the dominant energy of the race into a channel alto- 
gether unprecedented and with a view to the achieve- 
ment of results of which previously the world had scarcely 
dreamed. In the light of this history we see originating 
and gradually developing into prominence and into per- 
manence a movement of singular proportions in growth 
unparalled, in continuity unbroken, in sweep commen- 
surate with the Christian centuries, in aim the most pre- 
tentious, in demands the most exorbitant, in all its char- 
acteristics, distinguished from any that had preceded it, 
involving changes and modifications intellectual and 
moral, social and political, the most wonderful and on 
any merely natural principle, simply inexplicable. We 
have before us what is called the Acts of the Apostles 
the whole of which is but in attestation of the fact that 
some such signal interposition in the interests of humanity 
as that to which I have just alluded, did, at the time in- 
dicated, actually occur. In all this thrilling record of 
battle and of victory — our faith in the accuracy of which 
no scrutiny can disturb — is either asserted or assumed, 
the might of some newly enkindled enthusiasm swaying 
the militant host. Prevalent in all, is the assumption 
of a new inspiration, of the uplifting and directing agency 
of some invisible hand, of a mighty inward spiritual 
buoyancy, to some extent participated in by all suscepti- 
ble souls and by which swayed, such men as Stephen and 
Paul and Barnabas were lifted into prominence trans- 
formed into living evangelistic forces in suffering and 
in toil, representing the spirit and the aim of a new 
epoch, the grandest in the history of the race. 

And, especially incontrovertible is the fact that the 



32 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

impulse thus communicated and at the first within cer- 
tain limits realized, as so all controlling and decisive, 
has, surviving all vicissitudes and through a gradual 
process of self-propagation, now becomes supreme in 
many hearts and is seemingly destined, through the un- 
limited assertion of inherent tendency, ultimately to sub- 
vert and sway the world. It outlived the period that 
gave it birth. It did not cease with the Apostolic age. 
It was not exhausted in meeting the exigencies of the 
primitive disciples. It abated not a whit when Stephen 
was stoned, neither did it perish from the earth when 
Paul was beheaded. With a continuity unbroken, lin- 
gering on into the ages succeeding the Apostolic, it has 
made for itself a history, the incidents of which, grand 
and monumental, are to its own existence a testimony 
that can never be invalidated, which only strengthens as 
the history grows. As, in the light of this history exhib- 
ited, we trace the progress of this impulse as from its 
commencement in an obscure chamber in the temple at 
Jerusalem, it has through all the Christian era gradually 
widened out, until now, it touches and sways not less 
than six hundred millions of our race or, as, like a 
mighty ever-broadening influence, it sweeps on into the 
future and to the ends of the earth. Its existence it is 
useless to question. It lies out conspicuously on the 
face of the centuries to the attentive observer, a fact as 
unquestionable as is the shining of the sun in the heavens 
or the revolving of the earth on its axis. 

Now, of this impulse, so mighty and to our nature 
so mysteriously communicated, were Peter and John 
the faithful representatives. In the context we have the 
situation described. The disciples have been arrested 
and in the presence of their enemies now stand arraigned, 
questioned, threatened and their preaching, from this 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 33 

time forth, interdicted. But of the might of the im- 
pulse swaying them and the practical outgoings of which 
had already so startled the repose of the metropolis and 
aroused the suspicions of the ruling powers was the at- 
titude of these primitive disciples in the presence of 
that degenerate council one of the earliest and most 
characteristic expressions. The sudden transformation 
of these men, just before so dispirited and imbecile, 
into a character altogether new from the servility of 
fear into defiance of hierarchal rage and the courage of 
an uncompromising fidelity to their own convictions of 
duty and of right, was to all significant of the fact that 
a new era had indeed dawned upon the world, the era 
of manhood and of heroic self-assertion, when, under 
the inspiration of a new life and a new hope, lifted into 
independence of all debasing thralls, men should dare to 
think and speak for themselves and the unfettered con- 
science of the race find expression, despite the decrees 
of councils or the usurpations of power. 

Now, as in Peter and John represented the impulse 
of which we speak — the ever abiding impulse of the new 
dispensation — was in them simply a force mightily con- 
straining them by all means and especially by oral proc- 
lamation to give publicity to certain things, the knowl- 
edge of which recently had come into their posses- 
sion ; in a word to make known and as far possible to 
all men the great facts of the gospel. Of a force thus 
constraining them, were these disciples intensely con- 
scious. By it swayed, were they lifted into an attitude 
sublime, confronting the edicts of the authorities charg- 
ing them that they should henceforth speak no more in 
the name of Jesus, with the bold defiant declaration, 
"We cannot but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard." 



34 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

In these words went out typically and in anticipa- 
tion the very soul of Christendom. They were at the 
opening of the new dispensation a sublime utterance of 
that mysteriously wrought impulse in all susceptible 
hearts, to give publicity to the great facts of redemp- 
tion, which in all the future of that dispensation was to 
be its broadest feature, its distinctive characteristic and 
out of which was to spring, inevitably as a stream out of 
its fountain, all activity having in view the spread of 
the gospel. For what precisely in its earliest represen- 
tative this impulse was, it is in all susceptible hearts to- 
day. It is an impulse in the direction of a world-wide 
propagandism in spirit and in aim, decidedly missionary, 
intensely evangelistic. Through all generations the 
primitive type survives. It is an impulse to speak, to 
tell something, to utter itself practically, to go out cease- 
lessly, concentrating the whole activity of the agencies 
it originates and sways with a view to the promulgation 
of the great facts of the gospel universally. Neither 
let it be supposed that this all constraining impulse of 
which John and Peter were so conscious, was something 
to which they alone were subjected or that it is distinctive 
only of those formally set apart to the office and work 
of the ministry. This impulse is, in its measure, partici- 
pated in by the whole Church, by the Church as a body 
and by the ministry only as a function of the body, 
vitally related to and dependent on the body. This 
impulse, as communicated to the early Church, was cer- 
tainly pervasive of the entire membership, " they were 
all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with 
other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. " In this 
impulse, Peter and John undoubtedly, to the fullest ex- 
tent, participated. In them, as ministers, providentially 
to this position elevated, did this impulse find its most 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 35 

conspicuous representatives. Through them as chan- 
nels did the waves of this all prevalent impulse roll out 
and beat against the stubborn rocks of prejudice and 
unbelief encompassing them. They, for the time, stood 
forth prominently in the front ranks of the battle and 
assumed, with all its dangers and with all its responsi- 
bilities, the leadership of the advancing hosts. And in 
this were they but the representatives of all those, who 
in subsequent ages have been called to the service of the 
Church in a similar capacity, as the organs through which 
she dispenses to the world those great truths with the 
knowledge of which she has been entrusted and to the 
proclamation of which, universally, she is by the force 
of an inward divine impulsion, so mightily constrained. 

And first of all, these men had something to say to 
their generation. They were not fledglings unwinged, 
attempting impossible flights. Through previous train- 
ing, under the very best possible conditions, were they 
fully equipped for their high vocation and in every way 
competent to the efficient discharge of the stern duties 
in that vocation confronting them. Not only were they 
as the ministers of the Church, with her dominant im- 
pulse thoroughly imbued, but also with the knowledge 
of all that truth of which she is at once the repository 
and the conservator and which they, in their represen- 
tative character, and in the service of the Church, were 
to disseminate and to the world make known. They 
were the very farthest from what it is said their enemies 
perceived them to be. They were not ignorant and un- 
learned men, but accomplished students of divinity with 
broad intelligence in the science of divine things en- 
dowed, having with distinguished honor just graduated 
from a school whose curriculum had been divinely pre- 
scribed and under the immediate tuition of one who had 



36 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

impressed even a ruler of the Jews with the conviction 
that he was a teacher come from God. ' ' Unto them was 
it given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. " 
Providentially, then, were these men in the possession of 
that which of all things the world most needed to know. 
Certain facts had come to their knowledge in import stu- 
pendous, in their influence far reaching, involving the 
destiny of millions yet unborn. These were simply the 
great facts of the gospel, by them designated " the things 
which we have seen and heard." 

Facts are the staple of Christianity, the raw material 
so to speak out of which the Spirit of God has fashioned 
a new world. This statement I am inclined to empha- 
size and the more so, in view of that speculative or ra- 
tionalistic tendency, so prevalent in the minds of men, 
to get away from the fact of the inspired record, to lose 
sight of them and to think of Christianity as simply a 
set of ideas, a doctrinal system, a theory, a formula, a 
creed. Instead of keeping firmly our hold on the great 
facts of the gospel as ; after all, the only things really nec- 
essary to be believed, the tendency is to philosophize, to 
indulge in speculations, to draw inferences, to pile up 
conclusions, until for the simple narrative of the evan_ 
gelists we have substituted a myriad perplexing intangi- 
bilities and find ourselves inextricably involved in the be- 
wildering mazes of error, uncertainty and doubt. Is it 
that in dread of materialism we let go the material basis 
on which Christianity rests and deem it vulgar to linger 
amid the tangibilities the things seen and heard that lie at 
the very foundation of our faith ? Must then the creative 
genius have no scope; tied to the facts where were orig- 
inality ? The mind of man is essentially active. In- 
stinctively we build our theories, formulate our creeds. A 
fact given, an inference is inevitable. The evangelists, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 37 

it is true, hold simply to the facts, indulge in no specu- 
lations, draw no inferences, venture no conclusions. 
Paul, however, cannot refrain. He must build and in 
close logical connection with the facts and under an in- 
fallible guidance gives us something like a " philosophy 
of the plan of salvation." He knows the peril, however, 
and for all future builders interposes this solemn note of 
warning, "I, as a wise master builder, have laid the 
foundation and another buildeth thereon ; but let every 
man take heed how he buildeth thereupon." 

Primarily and essentially, Christianity is simply an 
array of mysterious, vitally related and interdepending 
facts. Conspicuous in all is Christ, the great central 
fact, of all the strength and the glory. Facts, we are 
wont to say, are stubborn things. And it is this stub- 
bornness, this element of immutability, this somewhat 
of the absolute, that is in them that makes them, of all 
materials, the very best for building purposes. Just to 
the extent in which facts enter into your building, will 
you be spared the necessity and mortification of pulling 
down and building again. The creed in which only 
facts are incorporated needs no revision. Alas, for the 
stability of the structure, intellectual or moral, that is 
not built on them. If there is anything permanent in 
the product of your head or your hands that will make 
it immortal, it is the fact that is in it. It is the fact 
that is in the gospel that entitles it to be called ''the 
everlasting. " Were Christianity a theory, a speculation, 
a formula of the intellect simply, it were indeed at the 
mercy of all the winds, liable at any moment, even 
while you are looking at it, to tumble into ruins by 
some rival creed or counter theory undermined, scat- 
tered, annihilated. It rests not, however, on the 
speculative, but on the real, not on the visionary, but 



38 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

on the actual. It is rooted in the eternal verities. 
Underlying is a substratum of the self-evident, of the 
demonstrable, a sort of rocky layer of events and 
incidents, historically attested and cognizable by the 
senses. "Things," not vagaries, not dreams, but 
"things," great realities, projected out of the world of 
possibility into the world of facts, out of the spirit 
world into the world of sense; "things seen and 
heard." Christianity is, first of all, an appeal to the 
senses, to the eye and to the ear, and, ultimately, 
through them, to the heart. Christ lived and wrought 
his miracles in the eyes of men, was crucified, dead and 
buried, rose again the third day and ascended to 
heaven in the eyes of men. Of these things were these 
early disciples personally cognizant. They had seen 
the primordial rock, the primitive formations and 
traced the initial process through which, under the 
hand of God, had evolved the new creation. "To 
whom also he showed himself alive after his passion 
by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty 
days and speaking of the things pertaining to the king- 
dom of God." " From the beginning, " as Luke tells 
us, "were they eye-witnesses and ministers of the 
word." Thus they were witnesses, not philosophers, 
discoverers, not theorists, collectors of facts, not 
builders of systems. They gave their eyes as the 
organs of vision to all succeeding generations. And, 
is it a thing extraordinary, that we should be compelled 
to see with other men's eyes ? But, then, it is urged 
that their eyesight was weak, not as reliable as is ours, 
that what was evidence to them would not be evidence 
to us. It may be that to our vision is given a some- 
what broader range than was possible to theirs, but it 
is questionable whether it is a whit the stronger or the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 39 

more exact. That to which they testified was not some 
subtle discovery of the laboratory, some incidental dis- 
closure of the microscope or scalpel, but simply the 
consecutive phenomena of a great and humanly con- 
ditioned life, those conspicuous, broad-featured, every 
day-recurring facts of which any plain man, with ordi- 
nary intelligence, were as competent a judge as were 
the most learned and scientific. Howbeit, these dis- 
ciples could not distrust their own eyes. With them 
Christianity was not a mere theory, born up in the 
clouds, but a matter of fact, a scientific verity, a 
living, incarnate word, to their senses manifested, to 
their intelligence, demonstrated, which they had heard, 
which they had seen with their eyes, which they had 
looked upon and their hands had handled, a Word of 
life. 

With the great facts of the gospel then so vividly ap- 
prehended, these disciples found it simply impossible to 
withstand the force of the impulse so mightily con- 
straining them to make proclamation of these facts to 
the world. "We cannot but speak the things which 
we have seen and heard." This might, indeed, seem 
to indicate merely the necessity laid upon these dis- 
ciples to make known, — in some way to give publicity to 
the wonderful things that had come to their knowl- 
edge, leaving undetermined the specific form their ac- 
tivity should assume in order to this end. The impulse 
of the new dispensation is always mightily in the direc- 
tion of the promulgation of the gospel universally. 
In this direction, when thoroughly participated in, it 
carries the whole man. irresistibly. It goes out in all 
possible ways, uttering itself in all consecrated forms 
of activity. It would subordinate all possible agen- 
cies and to its purpose lay under contribution the 



40 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

sublimest functions of the universe. Anything that can 
tell the story, is pressed into service. The poet, under 
the swayings of this impulse in his own soul struggling 
for expression, would to his purpose subordinate dumb 
nature even, and to facilitate the diffusion of the truth 
of the gospel, universally invoke the co-operation of 
the very elements : 

"Waft, waft ye winds, the story, 

And you, ye waters, roll, 
Till, like a sea of glory, 

It spreads from pole to pole." 

Worthy of special notice, however, is the fact that 
the impulse of the new dispensation is in its practical 
outgoings, first of all, in strict accord with the simpli- 
city of nature. It is an impulse to speak. It is ever 
instinctively in this direction. " W 7 e cannot but speak." 
It is, first of all, in the heart, presently on the lips. It 
cannot delay. It makes haste to utter itself, seizing 
instantly the mode of expression the nearest to it and 
the most natural. It finds the tongue the most con- 
venient and uses it through its instrumentality, blazing 
out in a testimony of divine things overwhelmingly 
convincing. The Church of the New Testament sprang 
into being responsive to testimony, and must, through 
it, be perpetuated and extended into all the earth. The 
first disciples were called witnesses. This was their 
mission, simply to testify the Gospel of the grace of 
God. Significantly upon each of them sat the cloven 
tongues like as a fire. And the stream of testimony that 
with them took its rise, shall flow on forever. Other 
forms of expression may be employed, but in all, for- 
ever conspicuous, must be the speaking, the testifying, 
the preaching, and if, for no other reason, because God 
has so ordained. " Thus it is written, and thus it be- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 41 

hooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the 
third day, and that repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name among all nations, 
beginning at Jerusalem. " Not only then is it neces- 
sary that the gospel be promulgated, but that it be 
promulgated in this way by means of preaching. The 
preaching is as necessary as the cross, the pulpit as 
Calvary. The pulpit is Calvary reproduced in all the 
earth, a perpetual Golgotha, interdepending agencies 
they stand or fall together. In this way, then, through 
preaching, through the oral communication of the 
truth of the gospel is the great missionary soul of 
Christendom ceaselessly to pour itself forth and body 
its immortal yearnings for the conversion of the world. 

I have not the slightest disposition to overrate the 
preaching, or to claim for this specific function of the 
Church any position in the economy of God to which 
it is not fairly entitled. And yet, am I not insen- 
sible to the tendency in certain directions to get away 
from the simplicity of God's methods. The Church, it 
is intimated, must give way to the lyceum and the school, 
the pulpit to the press, and the preaching to the printed 
page. It may be thought that I am dreaming, and yet 
it is well if the sentiment of the Church is not itself 
slightly in the direction I have just indicated ; well, in- 
deed, if she is not, to some extent, losing confidence in 
God's way of converting the world and in her laudable 
devotion to curriculums and to catechisms and to her 
function as a teacher generally, almost insensibly seek- 
ing expression for the life that is in her in ways danger- 
ously exclusive of that divinely prescribed. . I indicate 
simply a tendency. It is difficult in anything to adhere 
strictly to the simplicity of nature. This is civilization 
to get away from the simplicity of nature. The farther 



42 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

you get away from the simplicity of nature, the more you 
are civilized. And yet that which needs just now to be 
emphasized and thoroughly wrought into the convic- 
tions of the Church everywhere, is the broad Scriptural 
distinction between teaching and preaching, between 
education and regeneration, between civilization and 
evangelization. Everything in its place. Historically, 
the Church ante-dates the university. In one gospel ser- 
mon, as thundered from the lips of a Whitefield, may 
lie the germs of a hundred universities. And though 
teaching is a function of the Church of God her vital 
primodial function is preaching. In this living testi- 
mony to the truth of the gospel through preaching, every- 
thing roots itself. The pulpit obliterated, chaos comes 
again. The academy, the lyceum and the porch may 
remain yet only as cold and sunless peaks lifting them- 
selves in meaningless pomp, amid limitless wastes of 
sterility and death. Then there are not wanting those 
who would subordinate the pulpit to the press and for 
the preaching substitute the printed page. They would, 
through the distribution of the Scriptures generally and 
the wide dissemination of ideas through printing, indoc- 
trinate the world and in this way win it to the practice 
of the gospel. The press, I am compelled to say, is not 
in itself much of an evangelist. As an auxiliary in evan- 
gelistic work it is certainly without a rival, and yet, to 
place it in competition with the living word of preach- 
ing, savors of burlesque. It is the competition of the 
cripple on his crutch in the race with the supple limbed 
athlete. Simplicity of method is characteristic of Chris- 
tianity. It goes forward to its ends, not circuitously 
but directly, not artificially but naturally, never writing 
the love messages it can whisper in the ear. The press 
can propagate Christian ideas, but the Christian spirit 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 43 

is altogether too subtle for it to deal with. The major- 
general from his headquarters may indeed arrange the 
plan of the battle and in writing issue his orders but the 
subaltern officers, the captains of companies and of 
squads, must signal the word of command to the eye 
of their comrades and transmit along the line the spirit 
of heroism in emphatic speech. Christianity is a spirit 
and the aims of its best efforts is the world-wide diffu- 
sion of itself as such. You cannot communicate spirit 
through machinery. Ritualism as a conductor of the 
sacred magnetism of the gospel is a failure. Preaching 
only is efficient. Through it soul is brought into con- 
tact with soul. There is power in the eye, in its sympa- 
thetic tear, in its glance of fire. There is power in the 
voice, in its thunder tones, in its whispers, tremulous 
with love, all of which is wanting in the printed page. 

I know, indeed, that to many this preaching as a 
means to so great an end as the conversion of the 
world, is foolishness. Its very simplicity is its folly. A 
means more imposing, a method more complicated, 
stately and demonstrative would have suited them bet- 
ter. But, to all the questions of pride and unbelief, 
why this method and not some other, I have only to an- 
swer, "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching 
to save them that believe." The gospel then must be 
preached. It must be carried to the world in living 
epistles, in Bibles that can speak, that can voice their 
contents to the dull apprehension of a fallen world, in 
tones energized by the Holy Ghost and tremulous with 
all human sympathies. 

Now this impulse of the new dispensation is always in 
the heart of the Church, a force irrepressible, constrain- 
ing her irresistibly and in all possible ways and especi- 
ally through speech, through preaching to give to the 



44 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

world the knowledge of the great facts of the gospel. 
"We cannot but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard. " Pre-intimations of this characteristic of the 
New Testament impulse, were not wanting in the experi- 
ence of the saints of old. " His words, "says the prophet, 
' ' were in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones 
and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay." 
And as in the prophet, so in the apostle. "For neces- 
sity is laid upon me yea, woe is me if I preach not the 
gospel." To this feeling of necessity thus laid upon 
Paul to preach the gospel, is the whole Church in her 
measure subjected. The impulse in which this feeling 
of necessity roots itself, is not a latent, undeveloped, pos- 
sibility, but an impulse ever active and real in her great 
heart, a mighty pulsation which can never be repressed, 
a throbbing which can never be quieted save by a sort 
of fatal anaesthetic paralysis of all her functions, or, more 
honorably, perchance, by a little more generous letting 
out of her life blood a libation at the shrine of the 
world's evangelization. 

This impulse is irresistible as being the result partly 
of a divine command, of the force of that command 
in the susceptible heart realized in an ever-abiding 
sense of duty or of obligation to obey God. To the 
force of this command as thus realized do Peter and 
John refer as necessitating the course of action they in- 
tend to pursue. Antagonizing the impulse swaying 
them, is the edict of the authorities voicing the spirit of 
the age. It is a solemn crisis hour. The first great 
battle for human freedom is pending, the issue fairly 
made, God commanding, the council countermanding, 
conscience impelling speech, intolerance enjoining 
silence. With the disciples, however, there is no 
alternative. They must voice their convictions. To 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 45 

this are they impelled irresistibly. It is not optional. 
The coercion of a mighty hand is on them. By the 
force of an inward conviction, uplifted and swayed, 
they are equal to the emergency. In the ears of their 
already vacillating foes they thunder the decisive words : 
''Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken 
unto you more than unto God, judge ye." The com- 
mand of God is in our ears and in our hearts a sense 
of obligation to obey impelling us. "We cannot but 
speak." It is useless to convene councils, to command 
silence, to expostulate, to threaten. It avails nothing. 
The voice of God is decisive, absolute, supreme ; 
drowns all other voices ; it sways us, it commands us, 
dominates our whole being. Kindle your fires, forge 
your chains, in spite of all protestations, in spite of in- 
terdictions, dungeons and death, we must obey. "We 
cannot but speak the things which we have seen and 
heard." 

On a lonely Galilean mountain stands the risen 
Christ. He speaks. Let the Church of God listen : 
"All authority is given me in heaven and on earth. 
Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations." 
"Go," a solitary word, the force of which, unabated, 
is in all susceptible hearts, lingering to-day. It is then 
the force of a divine command, the spirit of this little 
word "go," that keeps the Church of God in motion. 
Her advancing columns move only under orders direct 
from the throne. 

And I cannot forego the pleasure of just here giv- 
ing expression to the profound astonishment I experi- 
ence in view of the strange, exhaustless and forever- 
abounding potency of that little word "go," as uttered 
by that obscure Man from that lonely Galilean moun- 
tain more than eighteen hundred years ago. In all 



46 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

history there is nothing like it, nothing more wonderful, 
nothing more sublime. It was the sudden kindling of 
an impulse that shall never cease upon the heart of our 
humanity, until from the lips of that same Man shall go 
forth in the end of the ages that other word: "Call 
the laborers and give them their hire." There have 
been words that once shook the world, but their force 
is spent, words that men once trembled to hear, but 
they are powerless now. I think of the multitudes 
swayed by the word of an Alexander, of the seried ranks 
that moved responsive to the word of Caesar ; of the 
hundred of thousands that sprang to arms at the word 
of a Frederick or of a Napoleon. But the mightiest 
word that either of these ever uttered is to-day a dead 
thing, a decayed germ, the life all grown out of it and 
wasted into nothingness. "But yesterday the word of 
Caesar might have stood against the world, now lies he 
there and none so poor to do him reverence." But 
this little word "go," requiring scarcely a half breath 
to say it, is yet brimful of power. Not yesterday, 
only, as Antony said of dead Caesar's word, but to-day 
it stands against the world. The impulse it communi- 
cated did not die in the hearts of those that first heard 
it. The centuries have lapsed, but that impulse is yet 
unspent. It was not limited to Palestine, but, uncon- 
fined, it went out in all directions. Penetrating far 
northward into Asia Minor, it swept down along the 
Mediterranean, through Greece, into Athens, over the 
silent tomb of Demosthenes, and still westward on to 
Rome, and finally, over all Europe, scattering every- 
where the seeds of truth, strangely giving to the dor- 
mant mind of the race a new direction and to all its 
activities the vigor of a new life. Its touch was the 
birth of a new civilization, its breath the quickening of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 47 

a dead world. To-day is this word on all the winds. 
It has never died on the ear, never been lost in the 
distance, but reiterated by the Spirit of Him who first 
uttered it, it has, warm with the breath of divinity, 
come ringing down the way of the ages, thrilling on 
listening ears the battle cry of the universe, while, re- 
sponsive to that word of command, have risen up, and 
are now rising up out of the very bosom of the Church, 
and in the very flower of their youth, men, cultured, and 
for their high vocation trained, an exceeding great army, 
who, abandoning the paths of worldly preferment, are 
now waiting to go forth, bearing to the ends of the 
earth the glorious gospel of the blessed God. 

The impulse of the new dispensation, however, is ir- 
repressible not only as a result of the divine command, 
but, also, and more especially as the result of a divine 
life. It is doubtful, indeed, whether the mere command 
of Christ, however authoritative, could have originated 
an impulse sufficient to stimulate that ceaseless unrest- 
ing activity in disseminating the truth of the gospel that 
from the beginning and through all the weary centuries 
of toil, has characterized the Church of God. The ac- 
tivity that is to save the world, is not forced, rooting it- 
self in a mere sense of duty, not produced by mercenary 
hope or slavish fear, but instinctive and natural, pro- 
ceeding from the enthusiasm kindled by the Spirit of 
Jesus. With the missionary sentiment must glow the 
missionary spirit. The impotence of a divine command, 
in the absence of a divine life, the Saviour himself dis- 
tinctly recognizes. Hence with the word of command, 
' ' Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, " 
came also that other word, that word of promise " and 
lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
Livingly, personally, abidingly, present then with his 



48 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Church is the glorified Christ. The life of the Church 
is but the life of Christ unfolding in humanity. He is 
that vital germ more than eighteen hundred years ago 
planted in the soil of humanity in which the whole 
Church was originally closed and shut up and out of 
which as a tree out of its seed, the Church has grown. 
The Church of God, what a marvel, what a mystery ! 
A phenomenon of all in this or in any age to the mind 
of man presented, the most wonderful, a mighty organ- 
ism in which as it hath pleased him and for mutual edi- 
fication, God hath set ' ' some apostles and some prophets 
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers 
with a divine life inhering, all pervading, throbbing, 
pulsating, realized in mightiest yearnings and all em- 
bracing sympathies, giving to its varied functions, vigor 
and expansion and to all its varied activities, unity and 
power. In the life of Christ, in the Church of God, 
thus inhering originates inevitably an impulse in the 
direction of the world's evangelization. The life of him 
who came to seek and to save that which was lost, must, 
with its own nature and tendencies, imbue everything 
in which it inheres. The first conscious impulse of that 
life as by the one hundred and twenty disciples on the 
day of Pentecost realized, was to speak the things they 
had seen and heard. " And they were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as 
the Spirit gave them utterance." It was simply the im- 
pulse of the new divine life, swaying them, forcing irre- 
sistibly the utterance of the truth that was in them. 
The activity of the Church of God, then, is not, prop- 
erly speaking, something incidental or optional, some- 
thing that may or may not be, but something that mus 
be. Her life depends on it. It is not absolutely the 
result of a self-willing on her part, but spontaneous, in- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 49 

stinctive, the result of the impulse of the divine life 
that is in her, out of which she grows and the repression 
of the practical outgoings of which is simply self-anni- 
hilation. It is the result of an inward necessity. It is 
simply do or die. And the Church that will not do, ought 
to die. That Peter and John subjected as they were in 
all their powers to a divine coercion, with the whole 
force of the impulse of the life of Christ from the invis- 
ible heights sweeping down into their hearts, could do 
anything else than speak the things which they had seen 
and heard, is inconceivable. 

The most pernicious influences extant in nature, are, 
in themselves, the least perceptible. " There is a pesti- 
lence that walketh in darkness more to be dreaded than 
the destruction that wasteth at noonday." Subtly lurk- 
ing miasmas, engendering wide wasting disease, noise- 
lessly invade the domain of life, indicating their pres- 
ence there only by their fatal death-dispensing power. 
The detriment to the cause of God received through 
the lurking misapprehensions of its friends, is far 
greater than that received from all the direct attacks of 
its openly-avowed and more-accurately denned enemies. 
And the most fatal, I think, of all misapprehensions, so 
far as the extension of that cause is involved, is one 
gathering silently upon the heart of the Church, in the 
night of her unbelief to the effect that she can live,, that 
it is possible for her to exist and still assert before God 
her real character, apart from any decided missionary 
activity. It is hardly worth while, perhaps, to dispute 
about terms, yet I have sometimes thought I could de- 
tect the lurking of this fatal misapprehension, the un- 
conscious betrayal of it in the very words and phrases 
employed to denote that activity, having special refer- 
ence to the spread of the gospel. The old preachers 



50 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

and secretaries of the Missionary Society used to come 
around and, on anniversary occasions, inflame our pious 
zeal by telling us about what they called an "enter- 
prise, the great missionary enterprise of the Church of 
God." All well enough, I suppose; and yet for this 
word " enterprise," as used in this connection, I con- 
fess to have conceived, fastidiously, 1 admit, a very 
decided dislike, not simply because of the secular tinge 
adhering to it, but as conveying, as it always does, the idea 
of something unusual and extraordinary, some bold haz- 
ardous attempt, indicating, as it would seem, that in this 
work of evangelizing the world, the Church has assumed 
the character of an adventurer, has passed beyond 
the limits of her ordinary and every day life and volun- 
teered the doing of that which, inherently, she is under 
no particular obligations to do, thus subjecting herself 
to the possibility of failure and the hazard of defeat, 
whereas, in the work we contemplate there is, strictly 
speaking, absolutely nothing of all this. 

Indeed thus to speak of the missionary activity of 
the Church of the New Testament, as an enterprise, as 
merely incidental and beyond the sphere of her common 
life is in any, except the most limited and superficial 
view, a contradiction. It is simply saying something 
can exist without its essential qualities. The sun shines, 
not incidentally, but of necessity, because it is his na- 
ture to shine. Ceasing to shine, he ceases to be. For 
him to be in the heavens, is for him to illuminate the 
world. It is no enterprise with him to shine, no partic- 
ularly bold or hazardous undertaking, no passing be- 
yond the limits of his ordinary activity. He does not 
on occasion under some new awakening or special sense 
of responsibility say, "Now I must stir myself up to 
shine, call a meeting of the friends of the light, pass 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 51 

resolutions for a more vigorous and universal shining r 
resolve to send a ray over into China, or one into far- 
thest India, and yet another into benighted Africa, or 
with a stray beam, perchance to touch some distant isle 
of the sea. He never proposes to legislate his beams 
here or there, or by any mechanical adjustments to set 
the world in a blaze. Why should he? His mission is 
to illuminate the world. He organizes no societies, he 
holds no anniversaries. He simply shines. Clouds 
intercepting, still he shines. Mountains of ice, his 
beams defying, still he shines. It is the very thing for 
which he was kindled, that which from the beginning 
of the creation he has been doing and must to the end 
continue to do, not, however, incidentally or by force 
of circumstances, but because it is simply impossible 
that he should do otherwise. He shines out not in one 
direction only, but in all directions, and everywhere 
shedding brightness over the face of the moon and set- 
ting all the stars on fire. From the irrepressible im- 
pulses mysteriously generated in his great burning heart, 
go out spontaneously the ceaseless splendors that wrap 
the world. So with the Church of Christ. For her to 
exist is to manifest her splendors. Her life is essen- 
tially aggressive, her light diffusive as the sun's. Her 
mission work is not absolutely the result of self-willing 
on her part. She is in no positive need of meddlesome 
fingers to guide her beams. She would still shine were 
all your machinery annihilated. It is not your grand 
addenda called "Missionary Societies," that make her 
shine. The Society is only a sort of ingenious contri- 
vance, a little interposing lens concentrating in a given 
direction the intensity of her beam. Her activity is not 
forced upon her from without. It is not extraneous, an 
outside operation, a special undertaking to which, in 



52 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

her excess of zeal, she has lately concluded to address 
herself, but her divinely appointed lifework, the work 
to which she was born, to which she was in the begin- 
ning, through the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of 
fire, consecrated. 

Such, then, is the impulse of the new dispensation as 
in all susceptible hearts realized. It is an impulse to 
speak, to testify, to give world-wide publicity to the 
facts of the Gospel, "to teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost," in a word, to evangelize the world. 
It is an impulse irrepressible. There is no withstand- 
ing it. Before it all opposition yields, all barriers give 
way. "We cannot but speak the things which we have 
seen and heard." 



i 



CHAPTER III. 



£uxt i|ati) to l^ottflr, 

" If any man serve me, him will my Father honor." — John xii. 26. 

Can any man harbor, even for one moment, the hu- 
miliating thought that he was made for nothing? Can 
he by any possibility superinduce in his soul the convic- 
tion that God has thus munificently endowed him with 
the capability of intelligent activity, simply that it might 
be squandered without a purpose and reckless of all 
recognition or reward ? 

Purposeless existence would be an anomaly in na- 
ture. The trembling leaf, the unfolding flower, the 
light diffusing ray, all exist but with reference to some 
loftier end, while man, rising as he does infinitely supe- 
rior to the material universe, came not forth from the 
hand of God merely as the demonstration of his unerr- 
ing skill and vast creative power, but for an end more 
awfully grand and truly worthy the soul's immortality 
and its myriad endowments. 

But as human existence is not purposeless, so neither 
is it without a recompense. Conscious stirrings of im- 
mortality, impulses irrepressible, with perpetual striv- 
ings to rise superior to the contempt and feebleness that 
fell upon its nativity, even into the light of a divine and 
infinite regard, indicate that the soul of man was never 
designed for obscurity or to exist unrecognized in the 
universe of God. And though these strivings often fail 
of their object and the soul whelmed in darkness and 

53 



54 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

in doubt, still pines unblest by the recognition of heaven, 
yet all along its pathway through probation, are lying 
the evidences of a conflict, which, however unsuccess- 
ful, may well fill us with pity as it must with astonishment. 

Corresponding then with its capability for intelligent 
activity, is the two-fold conviction of every man that he 
must exist with reference to some noble purpose and in 
the attainment of that purpose become heir to a glor- 
ious destiny, that he must rank on the side either of 
good or evil, virtue or vice and stand identified either 
with Christ or with his enemies ; that serve he must, in 
either one or the other of these relations, while appro- 
priate to that relation in which his service is rendered, 
will be its nature and the final recompense of the re- 
ward. And divinely responsive to this two fold convic- 
tion of every heart, are the words of Christ : " If any 
man serve me ; him will my Father honor." 

These words suggest no novel or mystic theme, but 
simply the necessity of a consecrated life in order that 
it may be an honored one. They indicate that what- 
ever inferior honor may be achieved by other means or 
in other relations, he that would reach the very top of 
honor as implied in the regards of deity, must go up 
there by consecrated paths, by holy persistent endeav- 
ors in the way of service rendered at the shrine of Jesus. 

In these words, then, we have indicated the service 
of Christ as the sure path to honor. And my object is, 
as best I can, to unfold this path to your contempla- 
tions, and, if possible, induce you to walk in it. 

In this service of Christ then considered as the sure 
path to honor is implied, undoubtedly, the devotion of 
the whole man — body, soul and spirit — the unreserved 
surrender of all his powers. It consists in the outlay 
and expenditure for the glory of Christ of the very best 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 55 

and purest energies of our being. It is our best service 
of mind, heart and life that is here indicated, a service 
combining the subordination of our intellect, the affec- 
tions of our hearts and the obedience of our lives in 
the very highest degree of which our nature is capable. 

i. It is the very best and purest service of our minds 
or intellects that is here required by Christ. This is 
the first step in this path to honor. It is certainly a 
very great mistake to suppose that in the service of 
Christ the intellect is in no way involved. For, as in 
every service rendered, there is implied the subordina- 
tion of our minds, in some degree, to the will of those 
to whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, so a sim- 
ilar subordination of all the powers of our mind to His 
will, is essential to the service of Christ. It requires es- 
pecially such a subordination of all the powers of our 
intellects in this respect, as is requisite to and involved 
only in the service of a living faith rendered at the shrine 
of the Saviour. For, though not exclusively an intel- 
lectual activity, yet in the absence of the subordination 
of the intellect in some degree to the doctrines of Christ, 
the exercise of a saving evangelical faith is impossible. 
In the exercise of such a faith, the human intellect is 
subordinated to the doctrine of Christ, first of all, in the 
way of inquiry. The faith claimed by Christ is not de- 
signed to encourage sloth or to supersede the industrious 
use of any of our intellectual powers. It requires , rather, 
that those powers be quickened and stimulated into an 
earnest inquiry as to what is to be believed and what 
the evidence on which belief is to be established. The 
only basis of a genuine Scriptural faith is knowledge, an 
intelligent apprehension, at least, of the object of faith. 
My faith cannot out-travel my intelligence. It is lim- 
ited to what is revealed, to what I know. I cannot be- 



56 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

lieve until I know what to believe. " How," says the 
apostle, " shall they believe in him of whom they have 
not heard ? " Christ has indeed revealed His truth yet 
only in such a way as rather to stimulate than to dis- 
courage intellectual effort. That truth is not palpable 
to superficial glances. It is here in the gospel yet only 
as are the truths of science in the material world, here 
in a mystery, sequestered from the wanton gaze in sym- 
bols and typical forms, never impertinently demanding 
the recognition of any, but unobtrusively waiting the ap- 
prehension of all, who with senses exercised by reason 
of use to discern both good and evil, humbly seek it in 
the way of earnest inquiry and patient research. But 
such an inquiry requires labor. A distinct and satis- 
factory apprehension of divine things is no result of in- 
dolence. It is rather that strait gate into which, if 
any man would enter, he must strive. But men are 
naturally indisposed to labor or to give themselves any 
concern as to consequences. Hence it is, that the serv- 
ice of their intellects in the way of an earnest inquiry 
with respect to the doctrines of Christ is not more gen- 
erally rendered. In the exercise of a saving evangelical 
faith, however, the human intellect is subordinated to 
the doctrine of Christ, not only thus actively in the way 
of inquiry, but passively in the way of sacrifice. In or- 
der to such a faith, it is evident there must be a sacri- 
fice of much of the pride of reason. Not only must the 
intellect be stimulated to inquiry but also disciplined 
into humility. There is a sacrifice of the pride of rea- 
son essential to a proper investigation of divine truth. 
To inquire is one thing, but the spirit in which 
we inquire is quite another. Indeed docility of mind 
and simplicity of intention are indispensable to a suc- 
cessful investigation of truth in any direction. Pride 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 57 

of reason in the study even of things material is fatal to 
success. The student of nature must humbly subordi- 
nate himself to the law and to the spirit of nature. 
Especially, then, should reason come humbly and rever- 
ently to the investigation of the great questions of relig- 
ion. Yielding its claims to self-sufficiency, it must con- 
sent to come to the study of the Bible in sympathy with 
the great Spirit that indicted it in humble dependence 
upon all the aids available to the honest student of its 
sacred pages. And yet the mere investigation of divine 
truth, however successful, is not enough. That truth, 
once discovered, must be unhesitatingly acquiesced in. 
This unqualified acquiescence in the doctrine of Christ, 
so essential to His service, is about the last thing the 
human intellect is wont to yield, that indeed to which 
carnal reason is decidedly averse. From the necessity 
of that great intellectual surrender which such an acqui- 
escence in the doctrine of Christ always implies, it 
seeks a refuge in all sorts of speculative objections with 
which it busies itself and in the mazes of which the real 
and the direct evidences of the truth are lost sight of. 
Besides, there is in our undisciplined reason a natural 
revulsion from that state of mind involved in what is 
called " implicit faith." And yet, to the service of 
Christ, is that "humility before God," which such a 
state of mind implies, indispensable. "Let no man," 
says the Apostle, "deceive himself. If any man among 
you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a 
fool that he may be wise." 

But it is not only the best service of our minds or 
intellects, but also the very best and purest service of 
our hearts that is here required by Christ. And this is 
the second step in this path to honor. To the surren- 
der of the intellect must succeed the surrender of the 



58 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

heart. For it must be remembered that man is not all 
intellect, that he has a heart as well as a head, a heart 
to feel as well as a head to think, a soul that can adore 
and love as well as a mind that can investigate and 
know. It is evident, however, that the mind may some- 
times acquiesce in or yield a formal assent to the re- 
quirements of Christ and yet the heart rebel. This is 
evidently the teaching of Paul: "For I delight, " he 
says, "in the law of God after the inward man, but I 
see another law in my members warring against the law 
of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law 
of sin which is in my members. So then with the mind 
I myself serve the law of God but with the flesh the law 
of sin." His head and his heart were in contradiction, 
each inclining in a different direction. Hence, until 
the heart surrenders and is subordinated to Christ, its 
impulses are so potent and so absolutely in the direction 
of the wrong, as that the guidance of the intellect is 
completely neutralized and rendered ineffectual. Hence 
not only is the acquiescence of the intellect essential to 
the service of Christ, but also the surrender of the 
heart. Accordingly the heart, the whole heart, is de- 
manded. "Son give me thine heart." "O that there 
were such a heart in them that they would fear me and 
keep all my commandments always, that it might be 
well with them and with their children forever." 

Now in the service of our hearts as thus rendered at 
the shrine of the Saviour, are implied these two things 
especially, faith and love, trust and affection. Faith is 
emphatically a heart service. For though I have spoken 
of faith as an act involving the complete subordina- 
tion of the intellect, yet it is not by any means exclu- 
sive of the operations of the heart. Hence the exhor- 
tation : "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart." 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 59 

Hence the condition on which Philip would administer 
baptism to the Ethiopian: "If thou believest with all 
thine heart, thou mayest." Hence the declaration of 
Paul: "With the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
ness. " 

But the service of our hearts as thus rendered at the 
shrine of the Saviour, implies not only an unlimited 
trust in Christ, but also a supreme affection for Him. 
Accordingly, the entire affection, the warmest, deepest 
devotion of the heart, is demanded. "Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart." It implies that 
love to Christ becomes the ruling principle of the soul, 
that all other attachments and regards are not only sub- 
ordinated to this principle, but actually pervaded and 
sanctified by it. "If any man, " says Christ, "come 
to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and 
children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life, 
also, he cannot be my disciple." Ponder these words. 
Conceive, if you can, the affection Christ here claims 
for Himself, an affection so intense, so supreme, so ab- 
solute, as that even the legitimate attachment we feel 
for our dearest earthly friends, or for life itself, is ha- 
tred in comparison with it. Yes, less than Christ, and 
in Christ, and for Christ's sake, only, must we love all 
these. A subordinate place in our regards Christ will 
not hold. His love within us must be a principle un- 
circumscribed, all-pervasive, all-embracing, bounding 
all emotions, controlling all desires. Love Him we 
must supremely, or we love Him not at all. 

3. But it is not only the best and purest service of 
our minds and hearts but also the very best and purest 
service of our lives that is here required by Christ. 
And this is the third and last step in this path to honor. 
It is required of all those who would walk in this path, 



60 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

that they so order their conversation among men, as that 
in all things the name of Jesus shall be glorified and his 
kingdom advanced. "Ye are my witnesses, "saith the 
Lord. The highest enconium that can possibly be 
passed upon the mediatorial work of Christ is written in 
the godly lives of his followers. The Christian is him- 
self the product of the power of Christ's redeeming work 
and should in his life ever be to the world the represen- 
tative of that power. The idea of Christ's redeeming 
power may indeed linger in the Christian's intellect the 
experience of that power may dwell in the Christian's 
heart, but the exhibition of that power is found only in 
the Christian's life. Every Christian, then, is a repre- 
sentative man. Hence does any man ask me, "Has 
Christ power on earth to forgive sins ?" I answer, he 
has and point him to the Christian life as the authorita- 
tive record of that power. But O, if, as he turn to read 
that record, he find that Christian manifesting tempers 
or indulging habits at variance with truth and purity, 
my reference has only subjected me to his contempt and 
fixed perhaps more deeply than ever in his heart its al- 
ready too obvious tendencies to infidelity. To this, then, 
is every Christian called, to this office and ministry 
especially ordained. This is his mission among men, 
that he "should show forth the praises of him who hath 
called him out of darkness into his marvelous light." 

Bring, then, to this altar of Christ all you have of 
service and by a full surrender make it his forever. 
Bring the service of your intellects their sublimest faith, 
their loftiest intuitions, their highest reach of enlight- 
ened reason. Bring the service of your hearts their un- 
limited trust, their purest affections, their wealth of de- 
votion and all hallowed sympathies ; bring the service 
of your lives their swift obedience, their volume-speak- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 



61 



ing power with all consecrated forms of activity; bring 
all, I say, and lay it upon this altar, saying: 

" Here at the cross where flows the blood 
That bought my guilty soul for God, 
Thee, my new Master, now I call 
And consecrate to thee my all." 

Having thus endeavored to unfold to your contem- 
plations the service of Christ as the sure path to honor, 
I propose now to inquire somewhat as to the direction 
of this path, whither it leads, where it terminates. Does 
it lead anywhere to any goal sufficiently definite or de- 
sirable to induce us to walk in it ? I rejoice to know 
that it is no tedious doubtful way that is here indicated, 
no aimless, profitless journey to which this path invites. 
It has its goal accurately defined, distinctly pointed out. 
That goal is honor. " If any man serve me him will 
my Father honor." 

To honor anyone is highly to esteem him, to dignify 
and elevate him, to glorify and render him illustrious. 
And such, in a peculiar sense, are the rewards of fidelity 
to Christ. Such honor especially have all his saints. 
" If any man serve me, him will my Father honor." 

This implies the essential honor of the servant of 
Christ. For God sees men as they are and treats them 
only in accordance with their real character and actual 
deserts. He cannot honor what is not in its nature 
honorable. But is not the servant of Christ essentially 
honorable ? Can we conceive of any relation more en- 
nobling than this, any involving the possession and ex- 
hibition of qualities in themselves more creditable or 
inherently more deserving the divine consideration and 
esteem? In this relation is not the whole man elevated 
and dignity stamped upon all his powers? 



62 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

In this relation only, as the servant of Christ, as in 
all its facilities and powers subordinated to His glory, 
does the human intellect, asserting its freedom from all 
debasing restraints, rise into its legitimate sphere and 
put forth its purest and most ennobling forms of ac- 
tivity. 

What more honorable, what more ennobling to the 
human intellect, than the attitude it assumes in the serv- 
ice of a living faith rendered at the shrine of the Saviour? 
Essential to such a faith is the exercise of our highest 
intelligence in the direction of the most exalted ends. 
Unbelief is discreditable to the human intellect, inas- 
much as it roots itself in the spirit of insubordination to 
the dicates of the highest reason. It proudly assumes 
independence of the guidance of the supreme wisdom 
of the universe, and is no less unseemly in its source 
than in its attitude. It is usually due, either to ignorance 
or to vanity, or, perhaps, to both combined. It is either 
too indolent to investigate, or too proud to surrender. 
It is, in its ultimate principle, the result of the enslave- 
ment of the mind by the heart, so that the activities of 
the one are held in check, perverted and degraded by 
the impurities of the other. If there were nothing more, 
it were enough to condemn unbelief that it never gives 
rest. It has no rock under its feet. In the exercise of 
a saving evangelical faith, however, the mind of man is 
restored to its normal relations to the truth and to its 
original harmony with the mind of God. If, then, for 
the human intellect there is rest anywhere, it must be 
here. Neither, indeed, could any, except the most un- 
doubted evidence of the fact, ever cause us to believe 
that any should regard the exercise of a rational, intel- 
ligent faith in the doctrines of Christ as derogatory to 
the dignity of the human intellect. And yet, alas, there 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 63 

are not wanting those, who, influenced by some strange 
and most unnatural hostility to divine truth, deem its 
adoption a disgrace, or who, in order to secure a noto- 
riety for what they call independence of thought, affect 
the disgusting eccentricities of infidelity, and unblush- 
ingly deny all credence to divine revelation. Infatuated 
men ! I envy not their notoriety, I covet riot their fame. 
More enviable far the notoriety of those early Christians 
to whom the apostle wrote, saying, " First I thank my 
God, through Jesus Christ, for you all that your faith is 
spoken of throughout the whole world." This were a 
more reputable distinction, a fame more earnestly to be 
desired. 

But, as a matter of fact, I simply deny that such a 
faith, a rational, intelligent faith in the doctrines of 
Christ is, in any respect, derogatory to the dignity of the 
human intellect. Whose intellect has it ever degraded, 
whose understanding has it ever enfeebled, whose pow- 
ers has it ever pinioned? In the mind of what poet, 
statesman or philosopher has such a faith ever proved 
itself an element of imbecility ? Such a faith deroga- 
tory to the dignity of the human intellect ! Genius of 
Milton, I invoke thee from the shades to confound the 
calumny. Spirit of Bunyan, I summon thee from thy 
celestial dreamings to the rescue of thy religion. Soul 
of Luther, thunder from thy throne of victory and testify 
for God. And thou immortal Newton, speak from thy 
home amid the spheres and say, did humble faith tram- 
mel thy awful intellect in its stately marches through 
the universe of God ? 

Nay, never does the human intellect rise into its 
appropriate sphere, or assume its legitimate function in 
the universe of God until it renders the service of a liv- 
ing faith, at the shrine of him for whose glory that uni- 



64 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

verse subsists. How narrow the sphere to which other- 
wise that intellect is limited. Chained to the earth the 
soul of the unbeliever can have no fellowship with the 
unseen and the eternal. His unbelief shuts the door 
and bars it forever against his admission into the domain 
of the spiritual. Indeed, for him, no such domain ex- 
ists. He can travel only where sense leads, or, to rea- 
son's unfledged pinions, points the way. A stranger to 
that mysterious power, which opens to the believer's 
eye and to his vision discloses the contents of the un- 
seen world, his galled and manacled spirit only grovels 
in the dust, spurning the thought of anything better, or 
groans in a prison house from which there is no escape, 
or, from which, should any escape be attempted, he only 
beats against the walls of gloom within which he is incar- 
cerated and falls back again, a weak and helpless thing, 
into the embrace of rayless night and a still deeper despair. 

But when the service of a living faith in the doctrines 
of Christ has been rendered at the shrine of the Saviour, 
the mind of man has achieved the sublimest work of 
which it is capable. There is no grander exercise of its 
powers, no holier uses to which they can be subordi- 
nated. I know indeed the mind of man has uses vast 
and varied and has demonstrated its capabilities won- 
drously. I think of its marvelous inventions, of its 
reasonings profound and of its mighty searchings amid 
the lore of vanished ages. And yet, believe me, there 
is for the mind of man an exercise in comparison with 
which all these ordinary uses and activities dwindle into 
insignificance. You may indeed tell me of the unearthly 
fire that revels conflagration-like through all the verse 
of Homer, of the lofty sense, creative fancy and inspec- 
tion keen, exhibited in the magic-like delineations of the 
bard of Avon, or of the sweeter kindlier music warbled 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 65 

in the love-fraught measures of Scotland's rustic bard. 
But how highly soever we may estimate these achieve- 
ments of the human intellect, or reverently delight in 
them, there is, we know, in the simplest intuition of the 
faith of the humblest Christian that walks the earth, a sub- 
limity, a reach of power surpassing them all, an achieve- 
ment which has more of God in it and which links the 
soul with far brighter destines. For when the shades of 
oblivion shall be resting on Parnassus and her wreathed 
sons shall be without a name or a memorial, Zion shall 
yet be beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, 
and her sons, wreathed in garlands of immortal freshness 
and beauty, shall yet live to tell to listening angels how 
much superior is Abraham to Homer, and how far heroic 
faith transcends heroic numbers. 

Pick out, if you please, from the proud list of the 
mind's merely secular activities that one, if possible, of 
which men make the most and are accustomed to regard 
as reflecting upon it the highest honor, and given an an- 
gel for an umpire, I will undertake, whether in its worth 
or grandeur, to more than match it by the activity of 
which that mind is conscious in its surrender to Christ. 
You may, indeed, conceive of what Johnson calls "that 
burst of almost superhuman intellect which originated 
the 'Paradise Lost,' a work in which the grandeur of 
Milton's genius is so eminently displayed, you may con- 
ceive of all that rich and wonderful invention, which, 
finding the earth a field too narrow on which to expend 
its creative energies, issued forth upon discovery into 
worlds where only imagination can travel, and which 
delighted to form new modes of existence and to furnish 
sentiment and action to superior beings, to trace the 
counsels of hell and accompany the choirs of heaven," 
and, in astonishment, you may ask, " Is there, can then 

5 



66 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

be a nobler, sublimer exercise of the human intellect 
than this? any activity more honorable or reflecting a 
greater credit upon its powers?" I tell you there is. 
For I can conceive of that same imperial intellect turn- 
ing away from all these magnificent inventions as from 
vanity itself, and as a little child, tired of its playthings, 
sitting humbly down at the feet of Jesus, yielding sweet 
and implicit assent to the utterances of His lips, until 
Christian faith, taking the place of poetic fancy, enters 
within the vail, catching glimpses of that glory .which 
eye hath not seen nor the ear heard of, and of which it 
hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive. Now 
from that intellect recedes the world of imagery, and to 
it succeeds the world of reality, to the splendid crea- 
tions of genius succeed the creations of a loftier inspira- 
tion, and he who once sang of "Paradise Lost," now 
sits contented, feeling that in his heart at least, Paradise 
is regained, and, in utter forgetfulness of every earth- 
born excellence exclaims : "Yea, doubtless, and I count 
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge 
of Christ Jesus my Lord." 

But what we have thus said of the human intellect, 
is also true of the human heart. It is only as consecra- 
ted to the service of Christ that the human heart becomes 
essentially and transcendently honorable. It is a fact, 
rooted in the very nature of things and as such claiming 
our most serious consideration that the human heart is 
either elevated or degraded by its affections, honored or 
dishonored by its loves. Is not the heart throbbing 
with lofty patriotism more honorable than the heart 
blistering with treason ? Is not the heart of the man 
that loves his country more honorable than is the heart 
of the man that does not, or that loves gold or ease or his 
own glory in preference to it ? If not, then, were the 



t 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 67 

Arnolds of history as honorable as its Washingtons ; its 
Aaron Burrs as its Alexander Hamiltons. As is the ob- 
ject, whether pure or otherwise, so in its nature is the 
affection we cherish for it either honorable or dishonor- 
able. Tell me what you love and I will tell you what 
you are. If you love the good, you are good; if you 
love the bad, you are bad. For to love is to partici- 
pate in the nature of the object loved. He who loves 
an object pure and beautiful, must himself become pure 
and beautiful. Teach me to love the noble and you 
make me noble. Reclaim the affection and you reclaim 
the man. There, for instance, out on the cold common 
of the world, lies a poor crushed and bleeding human 
heart, filled it may be with all detested and all debasing 
tendencies so much indeed like his own as that Satan 
himself can hardly respect it. And yetwouldst thou re- 
deem that heart and into dignity and honor elevate it ? 
Seize, then, the latent tendrils of its affections and gently 
yet firmly entwine them around some pure and noble ob- 
ject and thy work is done. Thus do the affections honor 
or dishonor, ennoble or degrade the heart that fosters 
them. 

The tendrils of the human heart are ever entwining 
some god. To some altar is ever instinctively brought 
the whole wealth of human affection. Whither, then, 
tend the affections of the Christian's heart. Follow 
them now, if you please, as they go out in search of their 
appropriate object and you will find their every latent 
tendril reaching far above and beyond the terrestrial and 
the gross, even into the limitless and the pure, there en- 
twining the immaculate Jesus, the world's spotless Re- 
deemer, the sum of all excellence, the concentration of 
all glories. And does the human heart gather to itself 
no honor in the love of such a Being? 



68 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Does the human heart gather to itself no honor in 
loving what the angels love? The angels are held on 
their shining seats simply by the tendrils of affection 
entwining the Saviour of mankind. " And again, when 
he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, 
and let all the angels of God worship him." Should 
the angels of God cease to love and reverence Christ, 
how soon would their thrones be vacant and they, with 
dishonor branded, hurled out of heaven into night and 
everlasting woe. But such a catastrophe we need not 
fear. "x\nd I beheld," says one, "and I heard the 
voice of many angels round about the throne and the 
number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand 
and thousands of thousands, saying, " not mentally, not 
in low whisperings merely, but saying with a peculiar 
emphasis, "saying with a loud voice, worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and 
wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and bless- 
ing." By the testimony of heaven then, the wealth of 
the universe is the only tribute worthy the Saviour's 
shrine. Of whose love then is Christ unworthy? The 
heart, conscious of love to Christ, is conscious of the 
highest impulse of heaven, the impulse swaying the an- 
gelic throng. Loving what the angels love, it becomes 
angelic. Blending its sympathies with theirs, it, with 
them, participates in all the honors incident to their ex- 
alted service around the eternal throne. 

Does the human heart gather to itself no honor in 
the love of the essentially beautiful ? The beauty of 
Christ is supreme. His is the beauty of holiness of 
which all mere natural beauty is but a reflection, a typi- 
cal ray. Is the flower beautiful as it unfolds its tinted 
leaf to the gentle kisses of the sunbeam ? "I am, " says 
the Saviour, "the rose of Sharon and the lily of the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 69 

valleys." Is the lone star beautiful as it sits like a gem 
on the bosom of night ? <T am, "says Christ, "thebright 
and morning star." Is the sweet light of the morning 
beautiful as after a night of storm it rises upon the earth 
all vocal with nature's wooing melodies and glittering 
with dewy pearls? Christ is the dayspring from on 
high, which hath visited our world waking diviner mel- 
odies and on her dark cold bosom kindling the light of 
still more radiant pearls. Christ is the Sun of Righte- 
ousness ever full- orbed and resplendent. He is the 
perfection of beauty the one altogether lovely. From 
His glory beaming countenance radiates perpetually to 
the vision of faith and through all the universe all the 
grace all the truth and all the soul entrancing lovliness 
of the highest heaven. He is the image of the invisible 
God. The heart out of which reaches forth in the di- 
rection of such a being the feeblest tendril of affection, 
must be honorable. 

But what we have thus said of the intellect and heart 
is equally true of the life devoted to Christ. It is only 
as consecrated to the service of Christ that life becomes 
essentially and transcendently honorable. 

A life thus consecrated to Christ has in it a reach of 
moral purpose that lifts it out of the sphere of the merely 
ordinary and the secular and affiliates it with every pure 
and beneficent agency extant in the universe of God. 
All the ends it aims at are God's. Such a life is essen- 
tially Christ-like. Rooted in His Spirit, its activity is 
all unselfish and pure. The servant of Christ liveth not 
to himself but for another. Neither indeed are the re- 
sults of such a life mere transitory impressions, ephem- 
eral vanishing footprints in the treacherous sands, but 
entities eternal baffling decay. It is only within the 
sphere of Christian activity that the fruit of life's labor 



70 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

acquires permanency of character. "Ye have not 
chosen me," says the Saviour, "but I have chosen you 
and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth 
fruit and that your fruit should remain." I thank God, 
that in this relation as the servant of Christ, I can 
achieve immortal results: I am not beating the air; I 
am not chasing shadows ; I am not sowing to the wind 
and reaping the whirlwind. My life is not aimless. It 
is no failure; I achieve results; I achieve abiding ever- 
lasting results. The fruit of my labor will remain. 
There is in it a moral element, an element of divinity 
that makes it immortal. It is imperishable. It is fruit 
unto eternal life. I shall rest from my labors and my 
works shall follow me. The results of all human activ- 
ity, save that which roots itself in Christ, shall perish. 
The results of human genius shall perish. Whether 
stamped on canvas or carved in marble, they shall pass 
away. Its temples shall moulder, its monuments turn 
to dust, its pyramids decay, but the results of the 
Christian's toil shall survive the conflagration even of 
the last day. Your fruit shall remain. The Christian's 
life, then, is essentially honorable. It is lofty in its 
aim, unselfish in its nature, and imperishable in its 
results. 

Such, then, is the essential honor consequent upon 
the service of Christ. It matters not who he is, what 
his circumstances, or where he stands, whether amid 
princes or peasants, amid the lofty or the lowly, whether p 
delving in dreary mines or walking the high places of 
the earth, whether sweltering at the forge or fanned by 
gentle zephyrs wafting sweet odors from spicy groves, 
it matters not, I say, wherever you see the servant of 
Christ, there you see an honorable man, a man with 
dignity stamped upon all his powers. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 71 

Thus, my brethren, the glory of Christianity is in its 
power to sanctify and ennoble what sin has desecrated 
and debased. By subordinating all his activity of mind, 
heart and life to the glory of Christ, it redeems its vo- 
tary from selfishness and passion, and thus from igno- « 
miny and contempt. It secures us honor by making us 
honorable ; it leads us to the cross and thus to glory ; it 
allies us with Christ and thus with immortality. It 
makes us the servants of the Son, and thus secures to us 
the benedictions of the Father. " If any man serve me, 
him will my Father honor." 

The way to the Father's heart is through the Son. 
No way so certain, no path so direct. This is natural. 
"He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father." 
You, as a father, cannot but respect the man that has 
in any way especially befriended your son. Thus God 
loves His Son, and cannot but honor the man that sub- 
serves His glory. 

You honor any one when you highly esteem him, 
when in your heart you love and reverence him, as 
when in the case of some one brave and true, you say, 
" in my heart I honor that man." Thus does the great 
God, away down in the silent depths of His infinite 
heart, honor the servant of His Son. For him He en- 
tertains sentiments of esteem, of respect and of special 
regard. Indeed, in His heart, God honors no other. 

As alone as I sat, and in meditation deep absorbed, 
I had a vision : I saw Jehovah, as, in His royal chariot, 
He journeyed through the earth in quest of the man 
whom, in His heart, He delighted to honor. 

Hard by His way, in hearing even of the rumbling of 
His chariot's wheels, a man of wealth and fortune had 
erected his stately mansion. He was a millionaire. 
Thousands envied him, thousands flattered him. He 



72 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

lived in state, arrayed in purple and fine linen, and with 
thankless heart fared sumptuously every day. Here 
plenty, no signs of want, save at the gate yonder, a poor 
beggar lying and some dogs licking his sores. But God did 
• not turn aside to see the man of wealth, the millionaire. 

But as onward His chariot moved, a man of splen- 
did erudition and philosophic lore passed by. Abound- 
ing in titles and honorary degrees, indicative of acquire- 
ments vast and varied, yet in his case all unconsecrated, 
he pursued in silence his thoughtful way. But God did 
not turn aside to see the philosopher. 

Not far, however, had the royal chariot advanced, 
when a world renowned statesman passed by. On his 
lips had listening senates hung entranced. To him, as 
to a strong tower had the nation turned in the day of 
adversity and to his wisdom confided her destinies in the 
perilous hour. And, now, with selfish aim and partisan 
zeal transcending all his public services, he is advancing 
to the highest places of influence and of power. But 
God did not turn aside to see the statesman. 

But soon a mighty warrior with shield and helmet, 
plumed and glittering spear passed by. His step was 
to the sound of instrumental harmony. A brilliant staff 
accompanied him. Cannon were booming in honor of 
his victories, yet victories for the wrong. But God did 
not turn aside to see the warrior. 

But as in the path of the royal chariot I followed on, 
I beheld and lo, a great monarch passed by. On his 
head was a costly diadem and in his hand the sceptre of 
empire. Triumphal arches spanned his pathway. A 
splendid retinue was in his train. Loud huzzas of ad- 
miring multitudes rent the air. But God did not turn 
aside to see the monarch, but went on his way and the 
monarch on his. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 73 

Then I said, does God care for nobody ? But lo, far 
beyond where the monarch was passed and where least 
expected now stands the chariot of Jehovah waiting the 
return of its divine occupant. The dismounted Majesty 
has turned aside from his accustomed course. Through 
dreary, winding unfrequented paths I follow him into the 
loneliest retreat. Suddenly I see his awful form bend- 
ing complacently over one of the very humblest of the 
sons of men. I look upon the object of his infinite re- 
gard. I see nothing in his external appearance indica- 
tive of his transcendent honor, in his surroundings noth- 
ing indicative of wealth or station. There is no helmet 
here, no crown or scepter of empire, that I can see. 
His garments are soiled and worn, his hands hard, his 
face is homely, his habitation lowly. But as I continue to 
look I see that lofty purpose sits enthroned upon his 
brow. His eye is tranquil, but upward and far into the 
future its vision is turned. His heart beats quickly as 
with some inward joy. And as I continue to look, a 
strange unearthly radiance illuminates his face, symbol- 
izing unutterable impulse welling from within. He is 
evidently conscious that God is near. And well he may 
be ; for this is the servant of the Son. And this is the 
very man God has turned aside to see. 

But to this man God has not come empty handed, 
but with magnificent donations of blessing and of grace. 
As you go to some poor famishing child of want with a 
basket on your arm filled with all good things, so God 
has come to him. Opening the storehouse of His good- 
ness, He enriches him with all the treasurers of im- 
mortality, the faith that removes mountains, the peace 
that passes all understanding, the love that casteth out 
all fear, the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. 
And as without stint or measure he dispenses these 



74 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

blessings, He says to him, " Servant of my Son I have 
come a long way to see thee. I inquired after thee but 
no one seemed to know anything about thee. But I saw 
the smoke of the incense ascending from thy humble 
altar and I knew it was the place of thine abode. I 
know thee, I honor thee. And these gifts and graces 
be to thee the signs and tokens of my infinite regard. 

You honor anyone when you dignify and elevate him; 
as when a rich man takes a poor waif off of the street, 
adopts him into his family and treats him as his own 
child. Or, as the great American people honor a man, 
when, by their votes, they lift him out of comparative 
obscurity into the Presidential chair. Thus God honors 
the servants of his Son. He dignifies and elevates him. 
He pre-eminently distinguishes him. The honor con- 
ferred by God upon the servant of his Son, is not by any 
means a mere silent respect, a mere passive affection 
or inclination of his own heart, but something positive, 
involving the actual state or condition of the individual. 
It is a real elevation, a conscious dignity conferred. 

God crowns with dignity the servant of His Son by 
granting him the most positive and convincing testi- 
monials of the relation he sustains to himself and of the 
estimation in which he is held. This he does by a 
special messenger, certifying directly to the Christian's 
heart the astonishing fact that he is accepted of God, 
that he is a child of God, that he is an heir of God. 
Into what inconceivable dignity does such a communi- 
cation from such a source elevate its recipient ? What 
honor is this to be told by God himself that I, even I, 
am his child and an heir to all his glory ? Read the 
sublime catalogue of the Christian's dignities as given 
by Paul, "For ye have not received the spirit of bond- 
age again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 75 

adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father. The Spirit 
itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the 
•children of God ; and if children, then heirs ; heirs of 
God and'joint heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer 
with him, that we may be also glorified together. Well 
may he who bears in his heart such a title to honor, 
such a patent of nobility, lift himself from the dust and 
walk erect the remnant of his days. 

Again, God crowns with dignity the servant of His 
Son, by taking him into relations of special intimacy 
and friendship with himself, by making his abode with 
him, unfolding to him the secret mysteries of his will, 
by making him the instrument of blessing to the world, 
"by detaching angel guards to attend his pathway through 
life, to hover near him in death and on their pinions of 
light to waft his spirit home. 

But, finally, you honor any one when you glorify 
riim and render him illustrious. But this is just what 
God does for the servant of his Son ; He glorifies him 
and renders him illustrious. 

I do not know just what is coming to pass. And 
yet I do know that something wonderful in the way of 
a magnificent unfolding and exhibition of his real char- 
acter, is yet to take place in the experience of every 
servant of Christ. It was under the inspiration of a 
far-reaching glance into the future that, Paul exclaimed : 
4 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall 
be revealed in us." For this glory, he tells us, the 
whole creation is now waiting, and in which it shall, 
ultimately, participate. 

There is a force in things that brings the right to the 
top and with the service links the reward. When this 
force sets in, kings cannot sleep. Thus, under the action 



76 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

of this force did King Ahasuerus, though he had long 
forgotten him, come at last to distinguish Mordecai the 
Jew. On that night could not the king sleep. And 
why? Because justice had not been done, because his 
faithful servant, Mordecai, who had detected and 
thwarted a vile conspiracy against the king's life, had 
not been suitably rewarded. So the king caused the 
records to be searched. Through them was he reminded 
of Mordecai's fidelity, by which his life was saved. 
Then said the king, ''What honor and dignity hath been 
done to Mordecai for this?" His ministers answered :. 
"There is nothing done for him." Then, anxious to 
make amends for past delay, he demanded of Haman, 
"What shall be done unto the man whom the king de- 
lighteth to honor?" Haman, supposing himself the 
man, prescribes a gorgeous ceremony, a public parade. 
Then, Ahasuerus, as a reward for his signal, yet hitherto 
unrecognized services, and in strict accordance with the 
suggestions, and by the hand of the perfidious Haman, 
lifted Mordecai out of obscurity into renown, arrayed 
him in the king's apparel, set the crown royal upon his 
head, and thus robed and crowned and mounted upon 
the king's horse, brought him forth conspicuously 
through the streets of the great city proclaiming before 
him, "Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the 
king delighteth to honor." Hollow pomp, you say, 
meaningless parade. Yes, and yet I think I see in it a 
type of something better, a symbol of that more sub- 
stantial and godlike way in which the King of kings 
shall ultimately glorify the servant of His Son and ren- 
der him illustrious. 

Now, for the time, if need be, many of God's people 
are in comparative obscurity, in poverty, in suffering, 
unrewarded seemingly, like Mordecai, the Jew, forgot- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 77 

ten even by him whom they have most devotedly served. 
But it shall not always be so ; the Christian shall not 
always be forgotten. Men may cease to remember, but 
God is not unrighteous to forget. There is, in the court 
of heaven, a book of records kept, a book of remem- 
brance, for those that fear the Lord and think upon His 
name, in which is a faithful registry of what each has 
done for Christ. And the time is coming, when in his 
case, as did Ahasuerus in the case of Mordecai, the 
Jew, God shall cause the record to be searched. And 
as shall then be found written therein all that each has 
done in the way of service rendered at the shrine of the 
Saviour, God will say, ''What honor and dignity 
hath been done to him for this, and the Recording 
angel shall answer, "There is nothing done for him." 
Then shall God hasten to make amends for all past de- 
lays, by conferring upon him all that dignity and honor 
to which he is entitled, but from him so long withheld. 
Then shall the true character of the servant of Christ 
be publicly manifested, his signal services conspicuously 
recognized, when, by the mighty hand of God, and in 
spite even of the envyings and plottings, of his ene- 
mies he shall be lifted out of obscurity into renown. 

"The sighing ones shall humbly seek 

In sorrowing paths below, 
Shall in eternity rejoice, 

Where endless comforts flow." 

Then will God glorify the servant of His Son, and 
render him illustrious. This will He do for him in his 
resurrection, in the judgment to all eternity. Then shall 
He robe him royally, crown him, enthrone him, glorify 
him, decree for him an eternal triumph, make him a 
participant in the administration of the affairs of the 



78 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

universe, and then, to the reverent gaze of all intelli- 
gences, to the wondering rejoicing millions of the eter- 
nal city, point him out, saying, 1 'Thus shall it be done 
unto the man whom the King delighteth to honor." 



CHAPTER IV. 



Moral ^otoo: Mltisttatefc tn ti>e Htfe ani 

"And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and 
miracles among the people." — Acts vi. 8. 

The light of Christianity is just dawing on the dark- 
ness of Palestine. Jerusalem, like some great heart, is 
heaving with tumultuous life. The solemn festival, 
commemorative of the divine interposition, as exhib- 
ited in golden harvest and in the giving of the law from 
Sinai, is waking in synagogue and dwelling the voice of 
thanksgiving and joy. Faithful Israelites' are hastening 
from their distant homes to the city of their solemnities? 
thus to mingle in festive scenes, when our attention is 
attracted to a young man of frank and fearless bearing, 
of superior intellect and fine Grecian culture, combined 
with a spirit naturally kindling with lofty aims and im- 
pulses, who, with others, has just arrived on his annual 
visit to the Metropolis. But now the day of Pentecost 
is fully come, the third hour, the solemn hour of prayer, 
is just at hand. The youthful stranger turns his foot- 
steps in the direction of the temple, but on his way is 
arrested by the concourse of the multitude which, by 
strange rumors, has been attracted to the place where the 
disciples of Jesus are assembled. The young man 
presses his way through the crowd and is now listening 
to the burning utterances of inspiration as they fall from 
the lips of Peter. Touched by the truth and Spirit of 

79 



80 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

God, he yields to their power and from that moment 
identified his fortunes and his fame with that hitherto 
obscure and now despised band. He continues his stay 
in Jerusalem, quietly fulfilling the duties devolving upon 
him in his new relation. But his light cannot be hid. 
By the many noble qualities of his heart and life com- 
mended to their confidence, he is summoned by his 
brethren to a position of highest trust and responsibility. 
He is consecrated a deacon in the Church of God. In 
this vocation, the might that is in him struggles to its 
full unfolding. The utterances of his lips and of his 
life are all with power. In him, the truth finds its ablest 
advocate and the infant church its bravest defender. 
Through his instrumentality, hypocrisy is unmasked, 
bigotry confounded, the church edified and the world's 
evangelization accelerated. He falls at last the victim 
of intolerance, a martyr to the faith, is carried amid 
tears and lamentations to his burial, -leaving to the world 
a type of all true greatness and a name cherished amid 
holiest memories and ever fragrant with immortality. 

Such, in brief, is the history of the man whose char- 
acter we find so graphically portrayed in the words be- 
fore us. Many indeed are the lofty characters that have 
rendered illustrious the progress of Christianity and 
which, standing up along the pathway of her history, be- 
token alike her divinity and her power. But of all that 
thus rise to kindle the admiration of the beholder, there 
is not one more grand in detail or more important in 
bearing than the one here represented, a character so 
embodying every excellence as evidently to entitle it to 
the distinguished position it holds in the history of the 
Acts of the Apostles ; worthy indeed to stand sentinel- 
like at the very entrance of the new dispensation, even 
as does Abel at the entrance of the old, a character rep- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 81 

resentative, in all respects, a genuine product of the 
gospel of Christ, the legitimate result of its liberalizing 
and elevating tendencies. Such a character could not 
have originated under the influences of mere Judaism. 
Philosophy with all its appliances could not have pro- 
duced it. To expect it under such circumstances, were 
to expect in midwinter the vernal bloom. 

But what was there in the character of Stephen thus 
constituting it the type of all true greatness and an ex- 
ample worthy of imitation to the end of time? It was 
simply the embodiment and the exhibition of power. 
This is, indeed, the principle by which all greatness is 
measured. We are so constituted as that to us nothing 
is great, but as the symbol of power. Whether conscious 
of astonishment, or of admiration, or of devotion, it is 
only in the presence of this quality. What is there in 
art, or in nature even, that impresses us beyond the 
power of which it is the result or the exhibition? Ab- 
stract feebleness is our contempt. So that just in pro- 
portion as her votaries become the subjects and the 
symbols of her own power do they meet the designs of 
Christianity and take rank in the scale of greatness. 
Hence, whatever of dignity or of worth the character of 
Stephen may assume in the Word of God or in our con- 
templations, the key to it all is found in this simple ut- 
terance of inspiration, " Stephen, full of faith and 
power. " 

Moral power, this, then, is my theme, moral power as 
illustrated in the life and death of Stephen. 

And as thus illustrated, this principle must ever be 

distinguished from that mere physical force residing in 

the nerve and muscle of the athlete, which, subservient 

to low ambition, struggling for the champion's belt, has 

ever and anon kindled the enthusiasm of half the civil- 

6 



82 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ized world, and which to humanity's shame it must be 
said, has from time immemorial served admirably, in- 
stead of argument, in behalf of error in its unequal con- 
tests with truth and right. Moral power is a principle 
unknown in such relations, and which subservient to 
nobler ends and to ambition in a higher sphere, distin- 
guishes its possessor from the brute. So, also, must the 
power of which we speak be distinguished from the in- 
fluence of wealth enchaining the envious eye by the 
splendor of its equipage, and enticing the dependent 
populace into the train of its glittering car. This is a 
power emanating from the man and not from his purse. 
Neither is it the over-awe of high position nor yet the 
prestige of official rank or station. For, in its presence, 
royalty even is dismantled of its luster, and the ermine, 
itself, becomes a meaningless badge. Vigor of intellect, 
threading the mazes of science, penetrating to the rec- 
ognition even of the subtlties of the universe, force of 
genius, enthroning its possessor among the gods, with 
the world idolater at his shrine, is mere feebleness con- 
fronted with this moral power. Even the power of work- 
ing miracles, suspending the laws, or interrupting the 
order and constitution of nature, is but secondary to 
that of which we speak. This is a special endow- 
ment, lifting its possessor into and qualifying him for 
a sphere peculiar, a sphere in which the merely natural 
and adventitious are unavailing. It is the energy of a 
soul swayed by the impulses of a divinely implanted 
life, the consequence of the waking up and unfolding of 
mighty spiritual appetencies in the nature of man. It is a 
power which, without violence to any natural law, en- 
thrones itself amid the simplicities of our being, but which, 
in its out-going, becomes a living Decalogue whose utter- 
ances, afl potential with divinity, arrest the world's recre- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 83 

ant ear with the authoritive, "Thou shalt, Thou shalt 
not ! " It is a moral power, having a moral basis, tend- 
ing to moral results, and in its nature such as Christi- 
anity bequeaths to all her children. Passively it is the 
immutability of principle amid tumult, the stability of 
law amid anarchy, the resistance of right to wrong, 
of truth to error, of virtue to vice, of an inward heaven 
to an outward hell; or, actively, it is but the outbeam- 
ing of divinity from a mortal shrine, the radiance of 
virtue, the overawe of goodness, the prestige of moral 
greatness, the felt majesty of truth, the sunbeam energy 
of love. It is power to think and feel and do for God, 
power for sustained and victorious conflict with inwardly 
existing foes, for self-mastery and for self-devotion in 
the cause of right, power to move the world onward and 
heavenward to stir men's souls and to shape men's des- 
tinies, to wake in human bosoms "the slumbering echoes 
of eternity," to hush the tumultuous voices sin has 
waked, those echoes, to silence. 

The biography of the Bible is the best in the world, 
a marvel in the literature of the ages. Its delineations 
of character are always bold, brief and truthful life- 
pictures in which our nature finds complete portrayal. 
By a single word or paragraph it fearfully analyzes its 
subject and pours light through every part. It unmasks 
the soul of an Elijah or of an Ahab and to our wonder- 
ing gaze exhibits the subtle coursings, to and fro, of the 
secret life forces on which all its movements depend. 
In the character of Stephen, then, as thus in a few 
lightning-like gleams of inspiration exhibited, do we find 
all the elements or conditions of moral power most har- 
moniously combined and attractively presented. 

And the very first element of moral power, as thus 
presented, is faith — faith in the infinite and the eternal. 



84 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

This was eminently characteristic of Stephen — " Stephen 
full of faith. " In him was faith an element all pervasive, 
to the fullest extent of which they were capable, subor- 
dinating in its exercise all the faculties of his being. 
He had faith in God, and in the cause of God, faith 
in Christianity, in its divinity, in its doctrine and in 
its destiny. He knew whence Christianity came and 
whither it was tending. He knew that it must triumph 
and that all things allied thereto must triumph with it. 
And, controlled by such convictions, he gloried in be- 
ing identified with its progress, in becoming an humble 
servitor to its designs of mercy and the willing, faithful 
repository of any and of every trust to which it might 
elevate him. Hence, also, the singular fidelity with 
which he maintained his relation to it and the power 
with which he vindicated its authority and enforced its 
claims upon the attention of his fellowmen. He was 
full of faith, hence full of power. 

The man without faith is always a weak man. The 
distrustful heart and the impotent hand go together. 
Faith of some kind, and in some thing, must underlie 
every vigorous and well sustained endeavor. The limit 
of faith, however, is the limit of power. Higher than 
your scaffolding you cannot rise. Hence the faith that 
secures to its possessor permanent moral power must 
rise from the imaginary to the real, from the finite to 
the infinite, must rise to lay hold upon the contents of 
the moral world. It must be a faith that pierces the 
vail of outward things, penetrating to the recognition 
even of the solemn verities of the spirit realm, a faith 
that opens wide the portals of eternity and brings to 
bear upon the soul the entire weight of its motives. 
Trust thyself and disdain to pray, is one of the popular 
religions of the age, a religion, the priesthood of which 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 85 

is embodied in the many rationalistic teachers of the 
day. In the temple in which they do mystic rites the 
Bible is useless and all dependence on foreign help un- 
manly. To them self is Bible, self is God. This, how- 
ever, is not the temple in which Stephen ministered, 
nor any who, like him, have walked this earth in the 
panoply of moral power. Faith in self can never lift us 
out of self; but faith in God lifts us into God. The 
one is the putting on of human attributes, the other the 
putting on of attributes divine. 

To him, then, who aspires to moral efficiency, to the 
sublime capability of self-control, and of stirring the 
hearts and influencing the destinies of other men, I 
would say, attain to faith, to faith in the infinite and in 
the eternal. For thus allied to what is strongest in the 
universe, he cannot fail to be all he desires, mighty in 
word and in deed. Full of faith, he will be full of power. 
Faith is conviction, " the substance of things hoped 
for." Through it the unseen world becomes real, its 
contents present and potent in the soul. Whatever is 
believed is to him who believes it a reality, and must 
sway him accordingly. Hence just in proportion as a 
man's life is based on great underlying convictions will 
it be decided and vigorous. Your weak man, your 
shadowy man, whose heartless words and soulless ac- 
tivities are alike powerless in the world, is the man that 
has no conviction. Even the man whose life is habit- 
ually controlled by artifice and cunning is conscious of 
a new power, if, perchance, these are for a moment sup- 
planted by an honest conviction. He instantly lifts up 
his head and wonders that he is still suspected. " With 
great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrec- 
tion of the Lord Jesus." They had faith in their own 
testimony, hence the power with which they uttered it. 



86 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

The secret of the wonderful power by Stephen, exhib- 
ited in the discharge of the duties incident to his high 
vocation, was the awful vividness with which through 
faith he apprehended the contents of the spiritual and 
eternal world. " Full of faith and power, he did great 
wonders and miracles among the people." 

But with faith in the infinite and in the eternal, there 
was combined also in the character of Stephen as an- 
other element of moral efficiency, a deep religious ex- 
perience. "And they chose Stephen, a man full of 
faith and the Holy Ghost." He was full of the Holy 
Ghost because full of faith. These are inseparably con- 
joined, the one as the result of the other. Thus, through 
faith, had Stephen entered into the full enjoyment of 
the great and peculiar privilege of the gospel dispensa- 
tion into the experience of an indwelling God. With 
him, Christianity was not a form yet to be realized, nor 
a theory yet to be demonstrated, but a fact thoroughly 
incorporated into his own life in the light of his own 
consciousness, distinctly apprehended, embraced by 
every faculty of his being. In him was a perfectly 
rounded Christian experience. In him love and joy and 
peace, with all the train of the Spirit's excellencies, had 
their dwelling place, constantly revolving around God, 
their blissful center, filling, in their sweet, harmonious 
round, the entire circle of his soul. He was full of the 
Holy Ghost, full of the presence and grace of the Spirit 
of God. Hence he was full of power. He was strength- 
ened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man, 
and thus made the source of quickening influences to 
the world. 

For through the indwellings and mightily in- working 
energy of the Spirit of God, had Stephen attained, first 
of all, to moral freedom. A spirit enslaved, is a spirit 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 87 

enfeebled. Moral power has no place in anature dwarfed 
by sin. It cannot go out from a warped and contracted 
soul, or, struggling through such perverted medium, it 
only falls upon the world askance and in broken splen- 
dors, like sunlight through the forest leaves. In order 
to moral power, there must be moral freedom, spiritual 
enlargement, independence of all debasing thralls. But, 
touched by the Spirit of God, the twisted gyves of sin 
that gall the soul and restrict its powers with all the re- 
straints that appetite and passion impose upon the un- 
folding of the moral nature of man and which have 
ever been among the most fatal causes of limited moral 
efficiency, instantly melt away. Then come to the soul 
enlargement and enfranchisement and the falling off of 
chains and the ushering in of the eternal jubilee. 

But, with the indwelling Spirit of God, came to 
Stephen not only freedom, but also inspiration. He 
was an inspired man, not only liberated but illumined and 
kindled and swayed by the unconquerable impulses of 
divinity with the immortal fervors of Jesus. For such 
ever is the man full of the Holy Ghost, an inspired 
man, the true Shekinah, manifesting God, all alive with 
God, instinct with divinity all pervading, living in every 
thought, swelling in every emotion, kindling in every 
word, unfolding in every action, a man of power. The 
man, the whole man, becomes a power. A power em- 
bodied, walking the the earth, an incarnation of celestial 
potentcies, exemplifying ever the Spirit's graces, recom- 
mending them to the world in all consecrated forms of 
activity, until, thrilled by the energy of his single life, it 
wakes to holy purpose and to the utterance of high re- 
solve. Such was Stephen as from the baptism of the 
Pentecost he went forth freed and fired by the truth and 
Spirit of God. 



88 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

But with faith and experience there was combined 
also in the character of Stephen, as another element of 
moral efficiency, a deep practical wisdom, discretion in 
the managemnt of outward affairs, implying spiritual 
discernment, " rectitude of inward vision," quick per- 
ception of adaptation of the fitness of things. He was 
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. There was light 
in his understanding as well as grace in his heart. He 
was, with all, a practical business man, prudent in the 
conduct of all matters pertaining to secular life. 

Such, then, are the elements of moral efficiency as 
presented in the character and illustrated in the life of 
Stephen. He was full of faith, full of the Holy Ghost, 
full of wisdom. These elements combined, made him 
the man he was, the man of power. And he, in whose 
character these elements thus combine, cannot fail to 
be recognized as a man of power, a " great power of 
God," with the prerogatives of the highest sovereignty 
endowed, "holding empire over human hearts not by 
arbitrary sway, crushing and subduing, but by the quick- 
ening, elevating energy of a godly, heroic life." Around 
his very name will hang a power, not such, however, 
as hung around the name of Nero, the bare mention of 
which "curdled the very life blood of the world with 
fear," but such rather as hung and shall forever hang 
around the name of Him of Nazareth, a terror indeed 
to evil doers, yet ever dispensing sweet influences to heal 
and culture the bruised and neglected heart of our guilt- 
stricken humanity. 

Turning, then, to the history of Stephen, we have 
here, first of all, an illustration of moral power in its 
bearings upon, and as influencing the reputation of its 
possessor. Of Stephen, it is said that he was a man of 
honest report. He was an honest man, and reported 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 89- 

as such, by all who knew him. His was a reputation 
which no inclination from the standard of rectitude had 
ever modified, which no deserved obloquy had ever 
tarnished. And it is the glory of Christianity that it 
makes its votaries not only practically, but inherently 
honest, and from the world extorts an undisguised testi- 
mony to their character as such. 

In speaking of reputation, however, I distinguish it 
from mere notoriety or fame. Fame springs from what 
a man does, reputation from what he is ; the one is the 
result of his station, the other of his character ; the 
former travels abroad into distant lands, the latter lin- 
gers in the neighborhood. Reputation is silent, fame 
trumpet-tongued ; this is often a fiction, that always a. 
reality. Fame lives only in the admiration of men, 
reputation in their convictions. I will be jealous of 
my reputation, my fame may take care of itself. 

We often hear of a discerning public, and there is 
much truth in the expression. It knows the honest 
man, and for the best of reasons, because it feels him. 
"Often deceived" do you say? Not long, however. 
The spurious coin travels not half so far as we are in- 
clined to think; the first man suspects it, the next iden- 
tifies it. The public is quick to discern any real merit, 
and not less quick to discover the absence of it. It is 
an invisible, ubiquitous tribunal, argus-eyed, before 
which every man stands arraigned, by which his real 
character is determined and his legitimate place in the 
scale of integrity assigned him, silently it may be, yet 
authoritatively and well nigh beyond repeal. 

Hence in the presence of such a tribunal, to stand as 
did Stephen, endorsed as an honest man, as one whom 
prejudice cannot blind nor self-interest swerve, whose 
integrity no temptation can subvert nor the stress of any 



90 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

circumstances whatever imperil, as one whom a sense of 
justice ever controls, who will do right though the 
heavens fall ; and to have that endorsement, not simply 
as the result of one or two brilliant acts in his history, 
but as the result of a life-long consistency of conduct, 
is, indeed, the exclusive prerogative of the man of moral 
power. 

But here, also, in the history of Stephen, we have an 
illustration of moral power, as securing to its possessor 
the confidence of his fellow men. The world is out 
everywhere looking for the honest man, and when she 
finds him, there is no trust she will not repose in him. 
Stephen had entrenched himself in the confidence of all 
that knew him, and this position of influence and of 
honor he had achieved through the energy of a divine 
life. He was a man whom his fellow men could trust. 
Not only had he faith in God, but his fellow men had 
faith in him. The man on whom other men will hang, 
must himself hang on God. Men cling to the last only 
to the man who clings to the eternal. Thus, we find, 
when murmurings and discontent occasioned by the neg- 
lect of the Grecian widows in the daily ministration 
threatened the peace and unity of the early Church, and 
the emergency called for an honest man, a man of in- 
tegrity and power, to assume the responsibility and lay 
the rising tempest, "they chose Stephen, a man full of 
faith and of the Holy Ghost." He did not nominate 
himself for the place, neither was he appointed to it by 
arbitrary power, but was borne into it irresistibly on the 
tidal wave of popular conviction. " They chose Stephen. " 
The confidence of our fellow men, brethren, is a seat of 
eminence which gold cannot buy, to which even a great 
name is not always a sufficient passport. It is not to be 
won by the solicitations of friendship, or purchased by 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 91 

the distribution of favors. It is not a prize within the 
grasp of sordid ambition, nor a legacy handed down by 
a pretentious ancestry, It is a seat of eminence higher 
than that occupied by the kings of the earth, yet fully 
within the reach of all, and, where not unfrequently sits 
enthroned honest poverty and untitled worth, a seat of 
eminence, which, when once attained, becomes to its 
occupant a seat of authority, a throne of power. To 
this throne, the confidence of his fellow men, is the man 
endowed with divine energy the legitimate heir. Vainly 
is his right contested. Nothing can intercept his prog- 
ress to the goal. As the needle to the pole, to him will 
be attracted all the moral tendencies within his sphere. 
To him, especially, will the hearts of honest men be 
turned in the hour of peril. When vital interests are at 
stake, and great trusts are to be reposed in somebody, 
when the great leader in political, social or moral re- 
form is called for, when desperate emergencies arise in 
church or state, when mighty enterprises are to be in- 
augurated or hazardous undertakings achieved, when 
•darkness obscures or disaster threatens, the hopes of 
the world and men's hearts are failing them for fear, 
and for looking after the things that are coming on the 
earth, then, when the strong man, when the king of men 
is wanted, then, even as was the desire of all Israel to 
Saul, so to the man of moral power will turn instinctively, 
and with deep, strange yearnings, the spmpathies of all 
the truth-loving and of all the good. 

Wanted then, of all things, in this sickly age of ours, 
most wanted is the man of moral power. Men of finan- 
cial power we have, money kings, millionaires building 
railroads and cities, developing the physical resources 
of the earth ; men of social power we have, stamping 
their impress for good or evil deep and broad upon the 



92 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

communities around them ; men of political power we 
have, representatives of the great ideas on which gov- 
ernments are administered ; men of brain power we have, 
mighty leaders of the thought of the age, but what of 
all is most wanted the supreme the imperative need of 
this hour and of ever hour is the man of moral power, 
the man full of faith, full of the Holy Ghost, full of 
wisdom, the man with the baptism of the Pentecost on 
him, Stephen-like full of faith and power, doing great, 
wonders and miracles among the people. For this man 
and for as many such as he may bring with him, the 
world's vacant thrones are now all waiting ; for him all 
heaven waits, his brow with costliest diadem to wreathe 
and high up on the scroll of immortality to emblazon 
his name. 

I propose now for a little while, if you will bear me 
company, to go out with this principle on to the field of 
battle and see how it carries itself in the presence of the 
forces of evil amid the din and the death-dealing shocks 
incident to its inevitable conflict with the powers of 
darkness. 

Of moral power it may, I think, be said that in this 
world of alien principles it is never found but in a state 
of conflict. It is simply irrepressible, sleepless as the 
eye of God, restless as His eternal Spirit. Like all life, 
it is essentially active. Its nature is to assert itself as 
it is the nature of the sun to shine. When it ceases to 
stir, it ceases to be. It is of the quality of instinct. It 
exists not mechanically, but naturally. It acts not from 
policy or outward compulsion, but from conviction and 
inward necessity. It knows no artifice. It is simple 
and diffusive. It affiliates spontaneously with light, but 
is repellent of darkness and all kindred elements. Its 
basis is sense of personal accountability to God. It. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 93 

calls no man master. It implies in its possessor an en- 
lightened conscience, deep sense of obligation, solemn 
convictions of duty, with a lively apprehension of the 
great purposes of existence. The bearer of such ele- 
ments must not count on absolute repose. He is not 
his own. He is subject to the mastery of forces whose 
source is eternal in the bosom of God, that recognize 
no earthly limitations, that spurn interdiction and all 
finite control. It is the fermentation of these elements 
in the nature of man that has made this world of ours 
the theater of a perpetual warfare. It is sense of per- 
sonal obligation asserting itself, clamoring for recogni- 
tion and right of way to the summits of power that 
causes the desperate struggle in which, ever and anon, 
topples some throne of tyranny, some institution inim- 
ical to the rights of man. There is, in this world, noth- 
ing so irrepressible as a human conscience freed and 
fired by the truth and Spirit of God. Bigotry may 
forge her chains, and persecution light her fires, but the 
unfolding of such a conscience, in word and in deed, 
will be in spite of them all. There was not, in the best 
days of the Roman Empire, power sufficient in her 
throne, or legions, to repress the utterances of that 
great Apostle who said, "And so as much as in me is, 
I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome 
also. " 

On that battlefield where truth and right await their 
vindication, to the man of moral power a mere negative 
attitude is impossible. It is impossible that he should 
fail of any decided impression on the world, passing 
like a shadow smoothly along, disturbing no one and 
undisturbed himself. His convictions will not allow of 
that. With him, conviction, where moral issues are in- 
volved, is not a mere notion vaguely entertained or an 



94 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

opinion simply wavering to suit all circumstances and 
all creeds, but a great fact grounded in his very soul, a 
stalwart reality, a sort of living thing, stalking to and 
fro in his conscience and to which utterance must be 
given or all claim to truth and manhood forever for- 
feited. His convictions sway him and bear him on- 
ward like a resistless tide. He has no alternative, he is 
in the grip of the invisible, the hand of God is on him. 
It is not for such a man passively to acquiesce in the as- 
sumptions of errors or pliantly yield to the usurpations 
of power. It is not for him cravenly to succumb to 
the decisions of ecclesistical tribunals or stupidly sur- 
render his inalienable right to think. It is not for him 
to submit his conscience to the dictates of any usurper 
or to sacrifice his soul's independence and sense of right 
in deference to or at the shrine of institutions, legalized 
and fostered only in the interests of cupidity and the 
most disgusting sensuality. It is for him simply to 
stand by the truth, obedient only to the behest of heaven, 
to stand in the minority often, with influence and power 
arrayed against him, often like a rock in the rapids re- 
sisting the whole current of the age. But, for him, iso- 
lation in faith or practice has no terrors, for with God 
and heaven on his side he dares to be alone and singu- 
lar. Over him the popular voice, though oft-times 
vexed and stormful even as the tempest-worried ocean, 
has no power, for, swayed as he is, by truth and right, he 
laughs its feebleness to scorn. Approaching the aw- 
fully grand, has been the attitude assumed in the criti- 
cal hours of history by those to whom it has been given 
pre-eminently to share with Christ in the sovereignty of 
the world. To the final roll call of the brave, who, on 
this earth have fought the battle for the truth, how many 
such will respond ! 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 95 

In each of the great crises hours of the world's his- 
tory, and especially when some new and decisive de- 
velopment in the progress of the divine administration 
is pending, the voice of God is heard sounding out into 
all the earth, summoning to their respective stations the 
various instruments He ordains to lead in the van of the 
great movement. A critical moment, indeed, involving 
a special emergency in the history of the development of 
the religious life of the world, is that in which, in the 
order of the divine providence, Stephen is thus sum- 
moned to take his place conspicuously among the many 
that have died to make successful the mission of truth 
in the earth. Directly in contradiction to the purposes 
of God and the mighty trend of His administration, has 
the blind conservatism of the Jewish Ghurch arrayed it- 
self. The spirit of the old dispensation, hitherto find- 
ing expression chiefly in the rites and ceremonies inci- 
dent to the Mosaic economy, breaking away from its 
sensuous environments, had already passed over and on 
into the gospel, and is now being clothed upon with the 
less cumbersome form and institutions of Christianity. 
To all this, however, are the representatives of the Jew- 
ish people utterly oblivious. Altogether innocent of 
the least suspicion that any such transition has taken 
place, we find them still tenaciously adhering to the old 
decaying forms and institutions of Judaism, notwith- 
standing the spirit that once vitalized them has thus for- 
ever departed. With them, any conception of the wor- 
ship of God apart from the temple or implying the abro- 
gation of its time honored usages, is simply monstrous, 
freighted indeed with all the turpitude of the most pos- 
itive blasphemy. 

Thus, with error wide-spread and dominant, error 
entrenched amid the prejudices, fostered in the affections 



•96 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

and breathing in the spirit of a most irreligious age, 
what is there for such a man as Stephen but to gird 
himself for the fight and fearlessly to go forth into the 
arena of conflict, leaving to God the issue of the con- 
test. Going forth, then, obedient to the stern prompt- 
ings of duty and in behalf of the claims of truth, he is 
soon involved in a fearful encounter with the Pharisaic 
tendencies of the Jewish people. Firmly, however, is 
his position taken, and to the last bravely defended. 
The most enlightened man of his times, far in advance 
of the spirit prevailing around him, with a breadth and 
compass of vision which even Peter and John have not 
as yet attained, he stands in the dawn of the new era 
comparatively alone, boldly affirming, in contradiction 
to the assumptions of bigotry, yet in full sympathy and 
accord with the spirit of prophecy, that the worship of 
God is not sensuous but spiritual, not local but univer- 
sal, not confined to the temple but everywhere the priv- 
ilege of those who worship Him in spirit and in truth; 
that the temple itself, with all its gorgeousness of ritual, 
is predestined to pass away and be superseded by the 
kingdom of the Messiah which, through the energy of a 
divine life, shall henceforth arise and triumph, glorified 
and freed of all earthly trammels. A declaration, how- 
ever, so severely discriminating against the claims of 
the temple and the dignity of their most venerated insti- 
tution, so subversive indeed of all their long and most 
fondly cherished hopes and aspirations, the selfish big- 
otry of the Jews cannot endure. Stung to the quick, 
and with resentment kindling, they hasten to the vindi- 
cation of what they deem the implicated sanctity of 
Moses and the law. In dreadful earnestness the conflict 
of opposing powers now begins. As the lone, yet in- 
trepid defender of the truth, the humble disciple of the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 97 

Nazarene is now confronted with the representatives of 
the various foreign synagogues. The disciples of no 
less than five schools are arrayed against him. Among 
the bitterest of his assailants he doubtless encounters 
now even Saul of Tarsus, of the Cilician school, a young 
man of brilliant genius and rising fame, fresh from the 
feet of Gamaliel, with trained intellect and vehement 
logic, of all perchance the most formidable and con- 
spicuous in the championship of a failing cause. For 
a time the weapon of warfare is seemingly legitimate. 
That weapon is speech. To meet argument with argu- 
ment is fair; all other methods are foul. But the argu- 
ments of Stephen thus met are irresistible. His words 
are the symbols of the Infinite and the true, theirs of 
the finite and the false. They assail him with all the 
arts of sophistry and, with subtle reasoning and keen- 
edged satire., vainly strive to parry the sword of the 
Spirit which, with a divine skill, he wields to their utter 
discomfiture and dismal overthrow. "And they were 
not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he 
spake." It was wisdom heaven-born, a spirit heaven- 
kindled, the Spirit of his Master, "the spirit not of 
fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.'' 
"To him were given a mouth and wisdom which all his 
adversaries were not able to gainsay or resist." 

But, the discomfiture of these men, by the power of 
his utterance, only arouses, yet, more thoroughly, their 
malice, occasioning an outburst of depravity, which, 
for the honor of our nature, I could wish this were the 
only instance. For thus confounded by the arguments 
of Stephen, they now resort to persecution, to craft and 
cruelty, to subornation and perjury, to mob violence. 
"They stir up the people, and the elders and the 
scribes." They come upon him, they seize him, they 

7 



98 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

drag him into the council where he is put on trial for 
his life, charged with blasphemy against the temple and 
against the law. False in spirit, as in source, malicious, 
thus runs the indictment, as based on the testimony of 
the witnesses they have suborned and set up. "This 
man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against 
this holy place and the law: for we have heard him say 
that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and 
shall change the customs which Moses delivered us." 

The council, in which Stephen is thus arraigned, is, 
doubtless, the Sanhedrim, a court among the Jews of lim- 
itless jurisdiction, of the most ancient and awful pres- 
tige as well, especially in matters pertaining to religion. 
In a spacious hall, built within the temple precincts, is 
this council now assembled. In the center, with his 
attendants, is seated the President, and around him in 
a semi-circle, the rest of the seventy judges. In the 
presence of this council, representing the learning and 
wealth and authority of the Jewish nation, had stood 
subject to its arbitraments kings and prophets and 
priests. Here, charged with blasphemy and to death 
adjudged, had stood the King of kings. Here, also, but 
yesterday, had stood two of his disciples, Peter and 
John, in the majesty of their bearing, the representative 
of a new epoch, the grandest in the history of the race, 
by the Spirit of their Master swayed, proudly defiant, 
of hierarchal rage and to every threat superior. The 
spirit now dominant in this assembly and influencing its 
decisions, is not that of the prudent Gamaliel but of 
Saul of Tarsus, rather proud, intolerant, the spirit of 
bigotry and hate, and of the most unrelenting hostility 
to the spirit by Stephen represented, and to the noble 
sentiments he had so fearlessly proclaimed. 

But what now is the bearing of this man of God as, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 99 

in the presence of the Sanhedrim, he thus stands ar- 
raigned ? Is he strong enough for his position ? Will 
not his courage fail him, and all the elements of power 
in him disintegrate and dissolve as he encounters the 
stern gaze of the men composing this highest and most 
awful court of adjudication ? Will he not cower before 
his judges in the presence of this dread array of priests 
and scribes and elders, with their official robes and life 
and death-determining prerogatives, be awed into sub- 
mission and the immediate retraction of every obnox- 
ious sentiment? Will he not recede from a position so 
hazardous ? Will he not compromise the truth to save 
his life ? Nay, to recede is impossible ; he can die, but 
retract he cannot. He, who had power to speak in words 
that pierced like arrows of fire the quivering hearts of 
his foes, now has power to suffer, and in proud defiance 
wait the issue of their dark resolves. Do you see that 
rock there in the midst of the ocean? For ages has it 
stood exposed to the surgings of the angry waters, yet 
immovably it stands, repelling without effort their re- 
doubled assaults, reckless of their froth and foam. That 
rock is but a type of that moral power of which Stephen 
is the conscious subject, as he stands exposed to the 
^chafings of the angry waves of popular feelings, calm 
^ amid its tumult, serene amid its storm. Such the lofty 
f bearing of Stephen in this degenerate council. He stands 
where his Master stood before him, charged with the 
same crime, and, like his Master, innocent and invin- 
cible. He stands there, however, not criminal-like, 
downcast and dejected in appearance, but erect, with 
head uplifted and face to the heavens, in the strength 
of conscious innocence invulnerable, with commanding 
figure as becomes a man of power, master of the situa- 
tion, with countenance all radiant with the light of hope 



100 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

and the outbeamings of an inward joy, inspired with 
confidence placid in its serenity, awful in its Christ-like 
repose. He stands before his judges not blanched and 
craven, but unterrified, undismayed, calm, collected, 
superior, like an angel in a conclave of devils. "And 
all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, 
beheld his face as it had been the face of an angel." 
For lo, God has just unbarred and thrown open wide 
one of the windows of heaven that the angels may look 
down and behold the scene, and through that open win- 
dow are reflected upon the countenance of Stephen a 
few golden rays of the light of that holy place, causing 
his face to shine like the face of one of its own blessed in- 
habitants. Or, it may, be that one of those happy angels 
that sit on the banks of the river of life, weaving crowns 
for the faithful, has actually descended, and in antici- 
pation of coming triumph, wove around his heroic brow 
a coronet of heaven's own sunbeams. Or, is it simply the 
outbeamings or the glory of the God that is in him, that 
causes his face thus to shine with an angelic brightness ? 

And thus with the martyr's wreath already on his 
brow and countenance, all transfigured in the light pre- 
luding the glory into which he is about to be translated, 
Stephen, in response to the summons of the High Priest, 
enters upon the work of defense. It is not, however, 
so much a defense of himself as of the truth, for testi- 
fying unto, which he here stands arraigned. The accused 
now turns preacher and in tones of authority addresses 
his judges. His sermon is a Scriptural sermon, replete 
with Bible doctrine and Bible history, true to the rec- 
ord, wide in its scope, definite in its aim. It is a plain 
and pointed sermon, abating nothing of the truth in 
deference to his own safety or the prejudices of his 
hearers, but all the way through, composed of that same 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 101 

hard, stern stuff of which the everlasting gospel is made. 
It is an evangelical sermon, a sort of crystallization of 
the very spirit and life of the Old Covenant, in tone and 
majestic tenor a genuine transcript and reproduction of 
the Sermon on the Mount. It is his last sermon — a 
dying man dwelling on undying themes with but a Meet- 
ing hour in which to picture forth a whole eternity. In 
his frail bark gliding swiftly down the stream of time, 
the rapids just below, he has a message of moment for 
the men on shore, he utters it and is gone. It is a tell- 
ing sermon. Aimed at the consciences of his hearers, 
it hits the mark. It is a sermon to make men think 
and feel and fear and tremble, such as Apostolic men 
are wont to preach. But having now, up to a certain 
definite point in his argument traveled historically 
through the Old Testament dispensation from Abraham 
to Solomon, touching upon and emphasizing by the way 
the great crisis periods in Israel's history, showing from 
the very spirit of all, and by the strongest inference, 
that his position is Scriptural, that the worship of God 
is not sensuous but spiritual, not local but universal ; 
that it is not, as they suppose, confined to the temple 
but world-wide like God Himself, who dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands, he now, 'mid signs of disap- 
probation on the part of his audience, evidently fore- 
tokening his doom, approaches the close of his dis- 
course, when, suddenly, a yet clearer light breaks in upon 
his soul and he is seized with an overwhelming appre- 
hension of the magnitude of his theme. In the words 
of Neander, "A vast prospect now opens before him; 
but he could not complete the delineation of the august 
vision of the divine dispensations which was present to 
his imagination; while gazing at it, the emotions it ex- 
cited carried him away, his holy indignation gushed 



4 



102 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

forth in a torrent of rebuke against the ungodly, unbe- 
lieving, hypocritical disposition of the Jews, whose con- 
duct in reference to the divine communications had 
been the same from the time of Moses up to that very 
moment. 'Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart 
and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ; as your 
fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not 
your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which 
showed before of the coming of the Just One ; of whom 
ye have been now the betrayers and murderers. ' " 

But the truth of God is a mighty weapon, and, espe- 
cially when it comes, in the language of stern rebuke, 
and wielded with a tongue of fire, there are but few that 
can endure the sharpness of this two-edged sword. This, 
especially, the enemies of Stephen cannot endure. 
But no reply is attempted. This were useless. Trial 
of this sort has already been made with sad results to 
their cause. A shorter method is at hand and more de- 
cisive. To this they now address themselves. The spirit 
of intolerance is now thoroughly aroused. The rebuke 
of Stephen is ringing in their ears. Their hearts are 
filled with rage, and on their countenances is pictured 
the fiendish design they so speedily execute. "When 
they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and 
they gnashed upon him with their teeth." 

But their sources of moral power are inexhaustible 
and only multiply as dangers thicken, and difficulties 
increase. "For Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost, 
looked up steadfastly into heaven." Behold his atti- 
tude, howfullof significance! ' 'Lookingup into heaven, " 
appealing from that Sanhedrim to the court on high, 
from that unjust tribunal to the judgment seat of Christ, 
as much as to say, ' ' Will he desert his servant now, or fail 
to vindicate his righteous cause ? " It is no new thing 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 103 

for Stephen thus to look up into heaven. This, indeed, 
is his habitual attitude. From the moment of his 
conversion has he been casting earnest, wistful glances 
in that direction, along the bright track, in which, from 
Olivet's summit ascended the Saviour's triumphal 
chariot, " seeking those things which are above where 
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Besides, it is 
a most natural thing for Stephen thus to look up into 
heaven. It is but the sighing of the spirit that is in him 
for its affinities, but the Holy Ghost that is in him 
claiming kinship with the skies. It is the instinct of 
a spirit heavenborn. He is born from above, and look- 
ing up into heaven he only looks into the face of a gentle 
mother. And, not only so, it is a most becoming thing 
for Stephen thus to look up into heaven. Who goes to 
live in a house without first looking into it? Stephen's 
removal is just at hand, M the earthly house of this 
tabernacle " is dissolving, he must find another home. 
Beyond the skies there is a home to let, "a building of 
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." God, the owner of the heavenly mansion, 
has just thrown open wide its everlasting doors and in- 
vited him to look in and satisfy himself as to its accom- 
modations. Stephen is a prudent man and the very 
last to neglect such a golden opportunity. Looking up 
into heaven is, indeed, the appropriate attitude of every 
Christian and especially the suffering Christian. Heaven 
is the direction whence cometh to him in the hour of 
his extremity the strengthening grace and the succoring 
arm. It is the hill whence cometh all his help. Hence 
to this hill should his eyes ever be lifted up. 

But Stephen looks up steadfastly into heaven, stead- 
fastly, with all the fixedness and concentrated energy 
of an unfaltering faith, steadfastly, in the assured con 



104 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

fidence that the help he implores will not be delayed, 
steadfastly, with vision steadier and yet more firmly 
riveted as the fascination grows, steadfastly, lest the 
gathering rage of his enemies distract his mind and be- 
tray his heart to feebleness and to fear. 

But Stephen does not look up into heaven in vain ; 
no one ever does. For, as he looks, a strange yet harm- 
less light first meets his eyes, the world of sense recedes, 
and as he continues to look he finds the celestial gates 
ajar, the portals of heaven all open, and, with steadfast 
and far-reaching gaze penetrating to its interior, a vision 
of still intenser glory bursts upon his soul. It is the 
glory of God. Heaven, itself, with all its splendor, now 
opens to his view. And in this, more than earthly splen- 
dor, " there appears to him a form of divine majesty, a 
Man glorified and enthroned at the right hand of God. " 
Who is this ? Stephen needs no one to tell him ; he 
knows Him at a glance. By the prints of the nails in 
His hands he identifies Him as his once crucified but 
now exalted Saviour. The sight of this, his once de- 
spised Friend, in His now royal estate, fills his soul with 
an unwonted ecstasy, and he exclaims, "Behold I see 
the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on 
the right hand of God." Hallelujah ! Awaiting every 
Christian are glorious deathbed revelations, the open- 
ing heavens, the entrancing splendors of the world to 
come, wafted upon the spirit's vision in anticipation of 
its flight thitherward. Everywhere else in Scripture is 
the glorified Jesus represented as sitting at the right 
hand of the Father, but Stephen sees Him standing. 
Something has brought Him to His feet. He cannot 
sit while Stephen suffers. Thus ever does moral power, 
in conflict with the powers of darkness, wake the sym- 
pathy of all heaven, and, thrilling even the heart of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 105 

Jesus, lift Him from His throne into an attitude of de- 
fense. This is to Stephen, first of all, a prophetic 
vision. In it is symbolized to the suffering martyr the 
inevitable triumph of his cause. To him Christ on the 
throne is the pledge of his sovereignty. The far-dis- 
tant yet ever intensifying glories of the Messiah's king- 
dom now burst full upon his view. He now sees the 
King in His glory, and He knows from His state and 
splendor that He is destined to reign " till He shall have 
put down all rule and all authority and power, till He 
shall have put all enemies under His feet. " He sees Him 
pavilioned in regal splendor, in the supreme glory of 
heaven enthroned, not sitting in the attitude of com- 
posure or indifference, but standing at the right hand 
of God, armed with divine terrors, and about to con- 
quer all who dare to oppose Him. This is to Stephen 
also a strengthening vision, a vision of personal com- 
fort and encouragement. To the wondering gaze of the 
young man whose eyes God had opened, there appeared 
the mountains full of horses and chariots of fire round 
about Elisha and for his protection pledged. But He who 
marshals the celestial cohorts, and, over the embattled 
plain, leads forth victorious the armies of heaven, is 
now in the vision of Stephen revealed, as with all his 
exhaustless resources of sympathy and power pledged 
for the triumphant issue of the mighty struggle. He 
cannot be afraid, he cannot falter. He is no longer in the 
council chamber, he is treading the precincts of the ce- 
lestial world. In his soul is the full tide of the Spirit's 
life, and on his countenance the transfiguring splendors 
of immortality. He sees the heavens opening to re- 
ceive him, and Jesus standing there "at the right hand 
of God," with His eyes fixed upon him and arms ex- 
tended to welcome and embrace him. 



106 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Beyond this vision what has Stephen either to hope 
or fear? Ravished with the vision of the celestial, he 
stands where no earthly vicissitudes can affect him. 
Here, then, is the triumph of moral power. It triumphs 
in Stephen, in him over all the powers of darkness vic- 
torious. For what is that council chamber with its 
mitered brows to him who, already, standing within the 
coronation chambers of eternity, beholds, ranged in 
order there, stately as the stars of heaven, crowns of 
righteousness, crowns of glory, crowns of life? What 
to him the savage countenance of his enemies while he 
sees the face of Jesus smiling on him? What to him all 
their contentions against the truth while he sees Jesus 
reigning victorious at the right hand of God ? What to 
him all their insults and frowns, their gnashings upon 
him with their teeth, while he sees his Redeemer wait- 
ing to welcome him and to embrace him and to say to 
him as he comes up out of his baptism of blood, "Well 
done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord." What to him the violence of a shock by 
which his spirit is about to be dislodged, while he knows 
that it will only be to him a leaping up out of the jaws 
of death into the embrace of immortality, only the ex- 
changing of the frail tabernacle of the flesh for a home 
forever in the bosom of glory? No, welcome the gath- 
ering storm, welcome the martyr's death and the mar- 
tyr's crown. Concentrate, ye powers of darkness, all 
your rage, batter down this house of clay ; I see Jesus 
standing at the right hand of God, and who, having 
once seen Him in His glory, can longer desire to live? 

The storm, so terrible and yet so little feared, now 
comes sweeping over him. , In the Sanhedrim the wild- 
est excitement prevails. "What," they exclaim, "he 
see Jesus, that imposter, that imbecile Nazarene, but 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 107 

yesterday hanging on the cross now standing at the 
right hand of God ? What blasphemy greater than 
this ? " They stop their ears in token of their horror, 
crying, "We will have no more of it." Formal sentene 
of condemnation is needless. He is self-condemned, 
self-doomed to execution. Like waves lashed by the 
fury of the winds, the tumult swells. Maddened and 
desperate, they cry out with aloud voice, "Stone him, 
stone him." Frantically, and with one accord, they 
rush upon him, only for a moment, held by the wild de- 
monical cry, "Without the gate ! without the gate ! " 
Preceded, and followed by the frenzied mob, they drag 
him forth beyond the city walls, within which the exe- 
cution cannot lawfully take place, and there, as is sup- 
posed, somewhere along the rocky edges of the valley 
of Jehoshaphat, the dark deed is done. Nay, not yet ; 
legal requirements must be complied with . The heavenly 
minded martyr, however, illegally condemned, must be 
murdered according to law. The witnesses must cast 
the first stone. In order to do this they take off their 
long outer garments and lay them down at the feet of a 
young man whose name is Saul. Calmly awaiting these 
sad preliminaries stands the imspired hero of the scene. 
In his upturned eye is a steady, far-off look. It is met 
by a reciprocal answering glance from the eye of Jesus 
who, in waiting, watchful attitude, is yet standing there 
work at the right hand of God. And now the executioner's 
begins. Suddenly, a fierce volley of the huge unfeeling 
boulders, hurled by arms stripped and nerved for the 
deed, comes crashing on him. Hark, he prays, an echo 
of words erst spoken from the cross, yet lingering in his 
soul, " Lord Jesus receive my spirit. Out of this body, 
bruised and crushed and bleeding into thy gentle loving 
bosom, let me empty my soul. " On bended knee he 



108 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

now humbly waits the issue of the deadly onset, the un- 
erring death missiles by the hot hand of bigotry sped, 
quickly do their work. It is finished. Prostrate and 
bleeding lies the majestic form. Silent now those brave 
lips, though quivering yet, with the magnanimous 
prayer, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. " Con- 
temptuously his murderers, passing by, glance at him as 
he lies there, weltering in his blood. Sullenly they re- 
tire. Gradually the clamorings of the mob receding in 
the direction of the city, die upon the ear. Solemnly, 
as with a speechless grief in her stony bosom, stands the 
mount of Olives, looking down upon the scene. -But, 
lo, from that now silent vale of death, up through 
the portals of the heavens still open, has already passed 
triumphantly into the presence of Jesus, the dislodged 
spirit of the mighty dead, there to receive in welcome 
and in token of an endless fellowship with him in glory, 
that hand once palsied on the cross but now strong to 
sway the sceptre of the universe, and with that hand, all 
the dignities and rewards appropriate only to those who 
have reached the goal through suffering and a death of 
martyrdom. 

They stoned Stephen, but they could not kill him. 
He only fell asleep. Composedly, and for sweet rest- 
ing and in hope of a glorious waking, he fell asleep. 

" O, is it not a glorious thing to die 

As dies the Christian with his armor on ? 
What is the hero's clarion, though its blast 
Rings with the mastery of a world, to this ? 
What are the searching victories of mind, 
The lore of vanished ages ? What are all 
The trumpetings of proud humanity 
To the short history of him who made 
His sepulcher beside the King of kings ? ' ' 

"And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and 

made great lamentations over him." 



CHAPTER V. 



Ei)t Insurrection oi ffifjrtet 

"Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He is not here, 
but is risen." — Luke xxiv. 5, 6. 

This is the first announcement to mortal ears of the 
perfect triumph of Jesus of Nazareth over the might of 
sin and death and the grave, the angel greeting to those 
devoted women, the first pilgrims to the holy sepulcher. 
" Why seek ye the living, " emphatically the living One, 
Him who is life, or as the margin reads, Him that liveth 
among the dead. Your search is groundless. " He is 
not here, but is risen." 

Now the wonderful fact in this angel greeting an- 
nounced, is simply that of the resurrection of Christ. 
A lucid statement of this great fact, as ever livingly pres- 
ent in the faith of the Church, is thus given in the third 
article of religion as found in our Book of Discipline : 
•'Christ did truly rise again from the dead and took 
again His body, with all things appertaining to the per- 
fection of man's nature, wherewith He ascended into 
heaven and there sitteth until He return to judge all 
mankind at the last day." This is a fact especially dear 
to every Christian, and in which are centered all his 
hopes of immortality, a fact the non-admission of which 
stamps us infidels at heart and practically obliterates 
from the dazzling records of Christianity all that is 
most essential to the scheme. 

The fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead 
109 



110 THE VOICE OU1 OF THE CLOUD. 

then, I now propose to consider simply in the light of 
the gospel record, simply as an event in the world's his- 
tory. I know, indeed, that of this event it may be said 
that it is very singular, and yet not more so, I think, 
than the kindling of yonder sun in the heavens. It may- 
be said that it is very unnatural, out of harmony with 
the great order of things originally established by God 
in the universe. And yet, not more so, I apprehend, were 
that order thoroughly comprehended by us than is the 
springing of the grass or the budding of the trees. I am 
satisfied, at least, that the power required in the one 
case, is not greater than that required in the other. Un- 
belief may cavil. But why, I ask, in the presence of 
such a universe as this, with its marvels and its mys- 
teries, with its suns and its stars flashing their light 
through its immensity, with its oceans, its mountains, 
its forests, its fields and its flowers, why, I ask, in the 
presence of such a universe, " why should it be thought 
a thing incredible that God should raise the dead." 

On the fact of the resurrection of Christ much, in- 
deed, is depending. How much, who can tell? The 
Bible, or divine revelation entire, differs from all other 
histories in that it claims to be inspired of God. Hence 
it must be true throughout, not only in its more general 
features, but in all its incidents and details as well. It 
is not possible that there should be in it, as there may 
be in other histories, a commingling of the true and 
false. It is but one great history, comprehending a series 
of events from the beginning, by a single underlying 
principle vitally linked together, and each in the matter 
of credibility depending on the other, and all in this re- 
spect depending on the resurrection of Christ. Hence 
the proof of this event is the proof of the entire history. 
This is the keystone of the arch. With this stands or 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. Ill 

falls the entire superstructure. £ ' If Christ be not risen, " 
says the apostle, "your faith is vain, ye are yet in your 
sins." And yet, on the other hand, all the evidence 
that goes to establish the truth of the gospel history in 
general, is in confirmation of this, the most stupendous 
event that history records. 

Especially prominent, then, in the New Testament 
record, is the fact of the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead. To an extent, commensurate with its importance, 
has this fact received a distinct and reiterated announce- 
ment in the Word of God. In this sacred volume are 
the circumstances connected with this illustrious event 
recorded in detail, with the utmost simplicity of state- 
ment and directness of expression, in a style severely 
historical, very unlike the indefinite discourse of the 
mere theorist, or the vapid portrayals of the visionary. 
The recital, we admit, is simple, yet grand in its sim- 
plicity, nothing extravagant, nothing exaggerated. The 
towering majesty of the miracle stands forth in charac- 
teristic representation. As a main pillar in the temple 
of our religion, it stands out conspicuously, attracting, 
not so much, however, by the gorgeousness of its exter- 
nal appearance as by the strength and durability of its 
materials and the imposing grandeur of its attitude. 

The entire history of the Saviour of mankind, as in 
this sacred volume presented, is characterized by deep 
and most astonishing contrast; sunlight and shadow 
strangely alternating, elevations and depressions alike 
incomprehensible. Sometimes the majesty that is in 
Him is so unveiled, as, that we instinctively shrink from 
His presence, overawed by a sense of the preternatural; 
then, again, the infirmities that beset Him are so multi- 
plied and so perceptible, as that we are touched with a 
feeling of sympathy for Him and compassionate His 



112 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

sorrows as those of a kindred nature. In His life, 
strength and weakness, glory and shame, triumph and 
defeat are so blended and their successions so rapid, as 
that the mind is bewildered and in its contemplations 
hurried onward irresistibly to the grand issue of the 
drama, where glory and triumph, honor and immortal- 
ity are in the ascendant forever. 

Now this contrast in the life of Jesus stands forth 
strongly revealed in the light of the inspired history. 
Contemplating this contrast on its darkest side, on the 
side of his humiliation, it would seem, indeed that Christ 
was simply the embodiment of shame and reproach, the 
representative of the helplessness of our nature, of its 
loneliness, its destitution and its woe. He commenced 
his career in poverty, the bland hospitalities of opulence 
dawned not on his humble birth for his cradle was a 
manger and his attendants the beasts of the stall. "He 
came unto his own and his own received him not. He 
was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief." We see him, touched with the 
feeling of all human infirmity, groaning in spirit and 
troubled in the fraility of human passion, w T eeping at the 
grave of a departed friend. We see him exposed to 
hunger and thirst and weariness, tempted by devils and 
insulted by men. We see him, not only made in the 
likeness of men. but in the form of a servant, actually 
girded with a towel washing his disciples' feet. We see 
him in Gethsemane, where, being in agony, he prayed 
more earnestly, -Father, if it be possible, let this cup 
pass from me." We see him betrayed with a kiss into 
the hands of sinners, apprehended by night, as a thief 
and a robber, subjected to the insolence of a heartless 
mob and his innocent person hurried away into the 
presence of an earthly tribunal. There we see him de- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 113 

serted by his friends, encompassed by his foes, to every 
conceivable indignity exposed, purple-robed, thorn- 
crowned, and scourged, buffeted, jeered, mocked at, 
spit upon. Thence we see him toiling beneath his 
cross, to the heights of Calvary, and, on that eminence 
crucified between two thieves. We see him nailed to 
the cross, we hear him cry, "My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ?" We see him bowing his head 
and giving up the Ghost. We see the soldier's cruel 
spear thrust in his side, the ghastly wound and forth is- 
suing the water and the blood. We see his body begged 
of Pilate, by Joseph of Arimathea, who, having shrouded 
it in fine linen entombs it in his own new sepulcher, 
wherein man never before was laid. And, finally, we see 
rolled to the door of that sepulcher, a great stone which 
is secured by a seal and around that sepulcher, stationed 
as a watch, a band of Roman soldiers. 

Thus, in our contemplations, have we followed the 
Saviour of mankind in that pathway of humiliation in 
which He walked, until seemingly lost to our vision 
amid the shadows of the tomb. The curtain falls. And 
is this the end, is there beyond this nothing, will that 
curtain never be lifted again, will those deep shadows 
now resting on the sepulcher of Jesus, settle hopelessly 
there and linger forever, or, will they yet be dispersed by 
the light of life penetrating again that silent depository 
of the dead ? Will Christ remain forever under the power 
of death, or, will He yet, conquering it in its own domin- 
ions, throw open wide the doors of its gloomy prison 
house and, coming forth triumphant, proclaim His vic- 
tory to the world ? This, then, is the problem on the 
solution of which hangs destiny. To blind unbelief, ever 
seeking "the living among the dead," and in its expec- 
tations controlled simply by the tokens of humiliations 

8 



114 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

previously exhibited in the Saviour's history, it may, in- 
deed, seem that this is the end, that beyond the grave 
of Jesus the historian of His life cannot safely go. ' ' The 
life of Jesus to the historian," says the Infidel Renan, 
"ends with His last sigh." To him, the resurrection of 
Christ is simply mythical, imaginary, the legends con- 
cerning which he very generously proposes hereafter to 
examine in treating of the history of the apostles. And 
if, indeed, the humiliation, the tokens of which we have 
just traced, were the sum total of the life of Christ, we 
might, perhaps, have grounds for the mournful suspicion 
at least that it had ended with His last sigh. Looking 
at Him simply on the side of His humiliation, there is, 
I admit, little ground for hope. For He who exhibits 
only weakness in His life, yielding so passively, so help- 
lessly, so unresistingly to the dominion of death, pre- 
sents certainly but little promise that, in spite of death, 
He will revive again. Thus reasoned His enemies. 
They, for the time at least, saw Him only on the side 
of His humiliation, in His poverty, in His imbecility, 
in His friendlessness. They saw not the God that was 
in Him. "Why," they said, "why thus be troubled 
with Him when He can be so easily disposed of? Is 
this frail thing thus to stand in our way, this carpenter's 
son ? Why we will just kill Him and that will be the 
end of Him." Thus presuming on His weakness, they 
apprehend Him, they nail Him to the cross, they crucify 
Him. Nothing hinders. But the dark deed done and 
all is changed. The tidal wave of retribution at once 
sets in. A sense of insecurity immediately begins to 
prevail, a secret feeling that though done, it were not 
well done, a latent suspicion that they have somehow 
failed to accomplish their purpose, a sort of boding ap- 
prehension that the grave is not competent to hold their 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 115 

victim, that, though now quietly reposing within its 
strong embrace, the irrepressible Nazarene will yet 
spurn its empire and come forth mocking all their ef- 
forts to destroy him. The fury of passion abated, con- 
science begins to assert its sway. The dead Christ 
troubles them. An innocent man has been murdered, 
and yet, about him is something murder cannot kill. 
The ghost of their ghastly deed confronts them. Hence 
their disquietude, their restlessness, their plottings and 
schemings. " Hence the guilty industry with which 
they desecrate the Paschal-Sabbath in devising methods 
for the detention of the dead body in the grave. Hence 
the official seal and the military guard obtained of Pilate 
under pretense of securing the body of Christ against 
the theft of His disciples. But beneath all these dis^ 
guises, they are the prey of fear and their real motive is 
terror lest the Crucified One shall, according to His 
own prediction, rise again." 

What, then, I ask, was the real ground of this latent 
suspicion and consequent terror with which the enemies 
of Christ were so haunted? Why this restlessness, this 
running to and fro of priests and elders, demanding the 
official seal and the military guard? Had they not ac- 
complished their purpose? Were they not masters of 
the situation? Were they not in the undisputed pos- 
session of the field? Was not their victim still and cold 
in death, in its stone coffin locked up and quiet beyond 
the possibility of entailing vengeance on His enemies? 
Was He not dead? Yes, but memory was not dead but 
alive and active and thronging with the recollections of 
the past. "Sir, we remember, " said the chief priests 
and Pharisees as they came together unto Pilate, ,; Sir, 
we remember that that deceiver said while He was yet 
alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, 



116 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

therefore, that the sepulcher be made sure until the 
third day lest His disciples come by night and steal 
Him away and say unto the people, He is risen from 
the dead : so the last error shall be worse than the first." 
What a betrayal of uneasiness in this declaration to Pi- 
late. But in what did this uneasiness originate ? Did it 
originate in any honest suspicion on their part that the 
disciples would really, as they had insinuated, invade 
the sepulcher and steal away the body of Jesus ? Nay. 
But rather in the well-grounded suspicion that the Word 
of that Deceiver, as they called Him, would stand; that 
He would do just what He said He would do, rise again 
the third day. 

But was there any reasonable ground for such a sus- 
picion on their part? Was there, in contrast with His 
humiliation, anything of majesty or of might in the pre- 
vious life of the Crucified One calculated thus to excite 
their fears, anything that might render probable the 
actual verifying of the prediction He had previously 
made with respect to His own resurrection? I think 
there was. In His previous life there was, I think, 
enough at least of the demonstrations of a supernatural 
power to render it exceedingly doubtful whether the 
grave could hold Him. That life was not all weakness 
and well did His enemies know it. Pre-intimations of 
the issue, so much dreaded by His foes, had all along 
been given, even from His birth up to the very moment 
in which He expired on the cross, pre-intimations cal- 
culated to superinduce in their minds the conviction, 
that if He wanted to rise again from the dead the third 
day, He. was perfectly competent to do so. 

Let us turn to His nativity. Here the light of a 
hidden glory first dawned on the cloud of His humilia- 
tion. From the heights of heaven, the angel messen- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 117 

gers, with congratulations loud, gave to the ears of 
watchful shepherds the earliest intimations of the in- 
finite bequest. They filled the air with richest music, 
and in the star-lit firmament held night-long jubilee. 

Let us turn to His life and there mark the indica- 
tions of that divinity, which ever and anon, with such 
spontaneous luster, gilded the strange darkness in which 
it had pavilioned itself. Here we behold midnight be- 
coming even as mid-day, illuminated by the splendors 
of His transfiguration. His word omnific, hushed the 
winds and calmed the chafed and restless sea. At His 
command, the affrighted demons deserted their human 
habitations and sought flight from His frown and pre- 
cipitant refuge in the deep caverns of their native 
hell. Disease withered under His touch, even as did 
the victim, over whose blighted form it held its poi- 
soned dart. Controlled by the potency of His voice, 
even death relaxed its stubborn jaws, and the grave, it- 
self, responding to His call, gave up its contents, and 
thus despoiled of its treasures, became a void and empty 
place. 

Let us turn to His death, and it will be found that 
there are not wanting even here, the evidences of a 
divinity that cannot die. All nature sympathizes with 
the mighty sufferer and by signs mysterious, confesses 
His eternal power and Godhead. The sun is darkened, 
the earth quakes, the rocks are sundered, the temple's 
vail is rent in twain, the graves are opened and the re- 
pose of hades and its dead disturbed, while heaven and 
earth, responsive to the voice of the centurion, proclaim 
through the trembling universe the astounding fact, 
''Truly this is the Son of God." 

Thus all along from the manger to the cross do we 
see how the forces of the resurrection were at work in 



118 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the life of Jesus, with solemn premonitions exciting the 
fears of his enemies and the hopes of his friends, that 
they would yet achieve his deliverance from the grave. 

O grave of my Saviour, when I think of thee and of 
thy significance, my heart is overwhelmed with emotion. 
Reverently do I approach thee. Thou art the deposi- 
tory of an infinite trust, the burial place of the world's 
hope. Thou enshrinest for all, the germ of a life im- 
mortal, the pledge of a general resurrection. Pending 
the solution of the awful mystery in which thou art 
shrouded, waits alike in trembling suspense, the destiny 
of all the living and of all the dead. In thy destiny is 
theirs bound up. Thou art the centre of a mighty con- 
flict. Within thy sacred precincts, invisible powers 
contend for victory. Thou must surrender thy contents, 
or God his sovereignty. That lifeless form now reclin- 
ing within thy rayless bosom, must again be stirred with 
living energies, or I and all mankind must go down 
hopeless and cheerless to thy dreary embrace. What, 
then, shall be the result ? Shall death's dread sover- 
eignty be confirmed, or his iron sway forever dissolved? 
What the issue? Shall the cloud of humiliation into 
which thy lifeless inmate passed, as he entered thy dark 
portal, nevermore be lifted away, or shall the mighty 
contrast, hitherto so conspicuous in his life, be mani- 
fested once again in the bursting forth of the light of 
His divinity over and against all this gloom and thus 
the lowest depth of his humiliation become the starting 
point of his highest exaltation? 

But why do I thus linger here, hopelessly " seeking 
the living among the dead, " and with the sad question- 
ings of unbelief, beguiling my poor heart of all of its 
Easter joys ? Is not the issue of the conflict already 
proclaimed ? Has not the record of that issue long 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 119 

since been enshrined in the faith of the Church and the 
recital of it, like a strain of heaven's own harmony and 
joy already warbled through many glad centuries of the 
history of the world ? Is it notin this history, distinctly 
recorded, that though the death and burial of Jesus had 
been accomplished at Jerusalem, and every conceivable 
precaution for the detention of his body in the tomb 
adopted by his enemies, that, though the first day and 
the second had passed, and yet no change in that mys- 
terious sepulcher, no ray or echo within her dark and 
voiceless chambers, save perchance the gentle whisper- 
ings of the angel watchers waking in solemn vigil around 
their slumbering Lord, that though their enemies, ex- 
ulting in their fancied triumph, were jeering in cold de- 
rision and bitter scorn the dying hopes of the scattered 
and trembling disciples, saying, " He could save others, 
but himself he could not save," — is it not, I say, in this 
history distinctly recorded, that, notwithstanding all 
this, the triumph of his foes and the despondency of his 
friends were equally of short duration. 

The natural sun on the day of the crucifixion, was, 
indeed, darkened, but it was only a temporary abate- 
ment of his illuminating power. Soon the obscurity 
passed away and his irrepressible beams burst forth 
again, with all their accustomed splendors upon the 
world. Thus on that same day were the glories of the 
divinity for a moment seemingly repressed, the splendors 
of the Godhead eclipsed. But the obscuration was only 
temporary. Suddenly, the repressed glories burst 
through the gathered gloom ever more and more to the 
eye of faith, kindling through heaven and earth, the ra- 
diance of an unclouded day. More rationally, indeed, 
might the enemies of Christ have supposed that the sun 
in heaven that had blushed over the tragic scenes of 



120 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Calvary, would never again throw off his crimson robe 
or mantle creation in his smile, than to have supposed 
that this orb of glory would never again burst forth in 
radiance from the tomb. More rationally, I say, might 
they have supposed that that sun, which, pale with 
astonishment, was then going down in the regions of 
the west, just as the pale deserted tenement of the God- 
head was descending to the tomb, would never again 
rise upon a world so stained with righteous blood, than 
to have supposed that this Sun of righteousness would 
never again assert his place in the firmament on high 
and, with his healing, heavenly beams, diffuse immor- 
tal gladness, warmth and vigor to a benighted, cold and 
perishing world. 

The quickening energy of the eternal Spirit," says 
one, "works in secret its mightiest results." The eye, 
of no earthly watcher, beheld the actual rising and go- 
ing forth of the Redeemer from the tomb ; yet sudden, 
multiplied and overwhelmingly convincing manifesta- 
tions attest the reality of his rising and proclaim it an 
accomplished fact in the history of the world. 

Well has it been said, with reference to that crisis 
immediately succeeding the crucifixion, when even John 
was dispirited and Peter went wandering lonesomely 
about and all the disciples were scattered every one to 
his own home, that only the faithfulness of woman's love 
held its ground when all seemed lost. 

For now, while darkness is gathering in her sable cur- 
tains from the distant poles, I see like shadows gliding 
upon the expanding twilight, a group of female forms. 
Soft indeed and silent as the falling dew is their hasty- 
tread, while their hurried breathings and the inarticulate 
words they speak, the suppressed tone, the glancing 
eye, the intensity of their whole demeanor, betoken the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 121 

struggling within of deep and conflicting emotions, the 
doubting fear, the trembling hope and yet the deathless 
love, the firm resolve, the noble daring, the glorious hero- 
ism that sway their gentle spirits. Of this group Luke 
distinguishes a few, Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and 
Mary the mother of James, and other women. These 
are the friends of Jesus. They had loved Him in His 
life. They had followed him in his weary pilgrimage 
from place to place, of their substance ministering to 
his wants. They had not deserted him in His death. 
They saw him breathe his last. They had formed the 
only mournful escort that followed his shrouded body 
to its lonely burial, in Joseph's tomb. And now lured 
by that same deep yearning, first fixed in their hearts by 
the impress of his forgiving love, their hastening in the 
twilight hour to the sepulcher, burdened with sweet 
spices to embalm the body of their loved Redeemer. 
But how unnecessary this kind precaution of Salem's 
daughters. Did they not know, did they not understand 
that His spirit linked to the throne of the universe, 
could not stay in hades, that His body, embalmed by 
the hand of divinity, could not see corruption? 

But now, as they near the sepulcher whither every 
noble impulse of their nature is tending, the difficulties 
of their undertaking, seemingly for the first time, rush 
upon their minds. Conjecturing among themselves they 
say, "Who shall roll us away the stone from the door 
of the sepulcher?" Ah, how little do we know with 
what powers we are leagued in the achievement of any 
noble purpose ; how little do we know with what sub- 
lime and immortal sympathies we are honored, when, 
in loneliness and in sorrow, we struggle to realize some 
ultimate good. How little did these heroic spirits know 
that at that very moment, all the higher sympathies of 



122 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the universe were blending with their own around that 
mysterious sepulcher. How little did they know that 
their difficulty had already been anticipated in heaven 
and its highest ministries employed to remove it. 

For now, in the end of the old Jewish Sabbath, just 
as the morning of the new Christian Sabbath is dawn- 
ing upon the world and the natural sun with projecting 
ray is " purpling the vines of Canaan and with rich light 
crowning the cedar tops of Lebanon," the morning of 
humanity's new life also begins to dawn and the sun of 
immortal hope emerging from the gloom of the past, 
mounts into the brightening heavens, concentrating on 
Golgotha and around the holy sepulcher its joyous 
splendors. For, lo, an angel on the battlements of 
heaven standing, with eye serene determined as if some 
majestic flight intending. Unfolding his pinions of light, 
he descends with comprehensive sweep adown the blue 
ethereal sky, with invisible myriads in his train. Cloth- 
ing himself with glory and terror and power in his rapid 
descent, he alights at the door of the sepulcher. He rolls 
back the stone from the door of the sepulcher and sits 
upon it. -''His countenance is like lightning and his 
raiment white as snow ; and for fear of him the keepers 
shake and become as dead men," 

And now, amid the convulsions of an earthquake, 
the only appropriate symbol of His triumph, in which 
all nature participates, Christ throws off the mantle of 
His infirmity and with it the reproach of hell. Now 
death, the terror-crowned, meets his conqueror ; his 
scepter is broken, his spell dissolved. Now, He, who 
laid down His life, takes it again. He who was put to 
death in the flesh is now quickened by the Spirit. In- 
stinct with life and all-conquering power, He now heaves 
the bars of death and in all the majesty of His vindi- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 123 

cated Godhead, transcends the feeble barriers of the 
tomb. 

" The rising God forsakes the tomb, 
In vain the tomb forbids His rise." 

Now bursts the grave of Jesus, now bursts my grave, 
now bursts thy grave, now bursts the grave of every one 
and healing heavenly light enters the dwelling of the 
dead. Yes, He lives, my Saviour lives and I, too, live 
and shall forever live, laughing to scorn the broken fet- 
ters of the death-realm. 

" Glory to God in full anthems of joy, 

The being He gave us, death cannot destroy : 

Sad were the life we may part with to-morrow, 

If tears were our birthright, and death were our end ; 
But Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow, 

And bade us immortal, to heaven ascend : 
Lift, then, your voices in triumph on high, 
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die. 

I stand now with the devoted women at the open 
door of the deserted sepulcher. I hear the angel greet- 
ing, heaven's sweetest message to mortal ears, the great- 
est word by angel ever spoken. " He is not here, but 
is risen." What a history in these few words, what a 
sense of the majesty and of the might of Jesus, as con- 
trasted with the impotence of His foes, do they convey? 
Think of all the precaution taken by the enemies of 
Christ, for the detention of His body in the tomb ; think 
of the guilty compact of the powers of darkness ; think 
of their cunning pretenses, their seal of authority, their 
borrowed military guard and of the great stone rolled 
to the door of the sepulcher; think how all hell was on 
the alert and all its invisible emissaries abroad, 
thronging the air and all the region round about the 
holy sepulcher, striving with every fiendish art and 
malignant device to avert the catastrophe and everlast- 



124 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ing overthrow of the kingdom of evil, which the resur- 
rection of Christ would inevitably entail ; think, I say, 
of all this. Then over and against this, set this simple 
word of the angel : "He is risen." "He that sitteth 
in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in 
derision." I know indeed we are wont to conceive of 
the resurrection of Christ as a result which God him- 
self could only with difficulty achieve, as something 
quite exhaustive of omnipotence, as a demonstration, 
laying under contribution all the energies of Jehovah. 
Never was there a greater misapprehension. Omnipo- 
tence cannot feel the pressure of any circumstances, it 
cannot be conscious of the might of any opposition. 
Nay, never did strong man rouse himself from quiet 
slumber so gently, as did Jesus from the sleep of the 
grave. Not for Him the descending angel, not for Him 
the earthquake, not for Him the rolling away of the 
stone from the door of the sepulcher, but for us. He 
needed not the ministry of any. He had life in Him- 
self. He is life, the absolute life, over which death 
and the grave have no power. ' 'Whom God hath raised 
up, having loosed the pains of death, for it was not 
possible He should be holden of it." 

Yes, Jesus is risen. The monster death was com- 
pelled to relinquish his prize and the greedy grave to 
give up its royal trophy. Henceforth the grave of 
Jesus is empty, the perpetual symbol of what ours shal^ 
be when His resurrection power shall have been fully re- 
vealed. "Come, then, see the place where the Lord 
lay." Come, all of you draw near, fear not. No mer- 
cenary guard intercepts your approach. The official 
seal is dissolved, the great stone rolled away. No grim 
spectres are there, no horrid shapes are there to affright 
the timid soul. See, see, bright angels are there! O'er 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 125 

his cold and consecrated bed and in shining robes attired, 
are still bending the peaceful watchers, fit emblems of 
that faith and hope that henceforth wake in cheerful 
vigil over the pale slumbers of each reclining saint. 
And as our searching gaze falls in upon that consecrated 
spot, so lately pressed by His slumbering humanity, 
there comes up a voice of angelic sweetness whose lin- 
gering spell still survives the tumult of the revolving 
centuries, saying not only to the weeping Marys, but to 
the bereaved and disconsolate of every age and every 
hemisphere, who, in the deep yearning of their sorrow- 
ful love, are with them going forth to seek the Cruci- 
fied : " Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He 
is not here, but is risen." " Come, see the place where 
the Lord lay." How different now the feelings with 
which we look into the grave from those with which we 
would have contemplated it, had not the Saviour's con- 
secrated form there reclined in brief repose. The grave 
of Jesus is an empty place. And, oh how much 
of significance in the fact. Among the many millions 
that are so filled with humanity's precious dust, I thank 
God there is one empty grave. The grave of Alexander 
is not empty, neither is the grave of Csesar, nor of 
Frederick, nor of Napoleon empty. They ruled mil- 
lions iii their lives; but the grave holds fast their dust. 
But the grave of Jesus is empty, and because His grave 
is empty, ours shall be. The hand that rent the sepul- 
cher of Jesus shall rend ours. " Because I live, ye shall 
live, also. I am the resurrection and the life. But now 
is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits 
of them that slept." His resurrection is the pledge of 
ours ; the first fruits gathered, the garnering of the en- 
tire harvest must follow. "For, if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also, that sleep 



126 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

in Jesus, will God bring with Him." His resurrection 
is the pattern of ours, f< even so, them also, which sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with Him." " For our conver- 
sation is in heaven : from whence also we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall change our 
vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glo- 
rious body, according to the working, whereby he is 
able even to subdue all things unto himself." 



CHAPTER VI. 



&ty ffiljrtettan j&o lifer. 

" Thou, therefore, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ." II. Tim. ii. 3. 

Every individual accustomed to read the Word of 
God, must have noticed the extraordinary facility with 
which the sacred writers introduce the customs and call- 
ings of common life, as illustrative of that higher life 
which we live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
us and gave himself for us. With numerous instances 
of this facility your own recollection will doubtless fur- 
nish you. Thus the steward, the servant, the laborers 
in the vineyard, the guest invited to the feast, the vir- 
gins waiting for the bridegroom, the runners in the race, 
are all employed and each with a view to a clearer and 
more forcible exhibition of some peculiar phase of re- 
ligious life and experience. One of the most striking 
illustrations, however, employed by the sacred writers 
for this purpose, is that in which the Christian is repre- 
sented as a soldier and his life a warfare. This is the 
character under which he is presented in the words be- 
fore us and as such, I now propose to contemplate him, 
and in so doing I inquire, 

1. In what particulars may the Christian be regarded 
as sustaining the character of a soldier? I answer, 

In his enlistment. He is called or chosen to be 
a soldier, not as once in a war for national independ- 
ence, or as more recently in a war for national unity, 

127 



128 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

but a soldier of the cross in a war for the right, for the 
maintenance of the principles of the gospel and subju- 
gation of the world to the dominion of Christ. In this 
great moral conflict or spiritual warfare, is every man 
loyal to his country and to his God called to enlist, 
called to be a soldier. He is called to assume this 
character by the Word and Spirit and providence of 
God. The Word of God comes to him as the procla- 
mation of his Commander, calling upon him to enlist, 
at the same time setting forth the ground and nature of 
the warfare and the great principles upon which it is to 
be conducted. The Spirit of God presents and renders 
potent in their influence, the motives prompting his en- 
listment and kindles within him the martial disposition ; 
while by the providence of God he is directed to the 
sanctuary, the house of God. as to the recruiting sta- 
tion of the army, where he enrolls his name as a soldier 
of the. cross, is equipped and uniformed and takes the 
oath of fidelity to the cause of his Master. 

His enlistment is voluntary. It was, as you re- 
member, the special boast of Abraham Lincoln as ex- 
pressed in one of his messages and was, as thus expressed, 
heralded to all the nations and will be handed down to 
all the ages as a thing to be wondered at, that of all that 
immense army in that perilous hour, rallied for their 
country's defense there was not a soldier but had taken 
his place there of his own free will. And so in this spirit- 
ual warfare, Our enlistment must be voluntary. Though 
we go not to this warfare at our own charges, we must 
go with our own consent. No conscription here. And 
it is the special glory of Christianity that not one of the 
myriads, that now wage the battle for immortality, has 
been enlisted by compulsion, or goes reluctant to the 
strife. The banner of the cross waves not in the van of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 129 

an impressed or resisting soldiery. The Captain of our 
salvation heads the march of no murmuring or discon- 
tented army; but warrior like, he girds his sword upon 
his thigh and planting himself in the very front of the 
gathering foe, the blast of his war trumpet is heard 
echoing from hill and dale, summoning to the rescue of 
His invaded empire, each valiant subject of His realm. 
And thousands responding to that trumpet note, now 
stand marshaled on the field of fight, while over them 
waves triumphant the flag of redemption inscribed in 
the language of their illustrious leader, " If any man will 
come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross 
daily and follow Me." 

His enlistment is for the war. The Christian 
soldier enlists, not for any limited term, not for three 
months nor for three years only, not for a summer or a 
winter campaign, merely, but for life. He goes forth 
determined to die in the army, resolved never to quit 
the field of battle until in death he conquers death and 
is borne hence on his shield. 

2. But the Christian may be regarded as sustaining 
the character of a soldier not only in his enlistment, 
but also, and more especially, in his warfare. 

He is not only called, but called for a special pur- 
pose — called to be a soldier. This involves the idea of 
a warfare. And to this especially is every Christian 
called, called not to ignoble ease and selfish gratifica- 
tion, but to toil, and hardship and life-long conflict — 
called to be a soldier, a patient, courageous, indomitable 
soldier. His conflict, it is true, is not carnal, but spirit- 
ual, yet not on this account any the less vital in its 
character, or momentous in its issues. He is not called 
to swell the ranks of any earthly leader, in the interest 
of any mere selfish or sublunary aims, but to be a good 

9 



130 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

soldier of Jesus Christ in the ranks of that vast army 
with which he is now advancing for the subjugation of 
the hostile powers that would subvert His authority and 
circumscribe His reign. 

For, if we take up the Bible, we shall find distinctly 
revealed therein a sublime scheme or order of things 
originating in the counsels of God before the founda- 
tions of the world were laid — a vast scheme or order 
of things reaching through all the ages, carried forward 
against all opposition, through the agency of some 
mighty, yet invisible power, subordinating the universe 
to its purposes, tending to the overthrow of the king- 
dom of evil, to the final glorious vindication of the 
divine attributes and to the ultimate establishment of 
the kingdom of righteousness and peace and justice and 
humanity in the world. Now, by this sublime scheme 
or order of things, I understand simply the administra- 
tion of Christ of which this earth has been, for ages, 
the renowned theater and with the progress and glory 
of which the Christian is always represented as being 
most intimately identified and, by virtue of this identity, 
elevated to the highest places of honor and rendered 
illustrious through all the dominions of God. Now, 
very frequently, in the word of God is this administra- 
tion of Christ represented as war-like in its character, 
as involving a mighty conflict of belligerent powers, a 
conflict between Christ and Belial, between the king- 
dom of light and the kingdom of darkness, this earth 
the great battle field on which the warring hosts have 
pitched their encampments and on which they now 
wage the fearful contest for the throne of the universe 
while the inhabitants of all the surrounding worlds as 
the deeply interested spectators look out from their 
realms of light or darkness, as the case may be, trem- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 131 

blingly watching the progress of the battle, the issues of 
the strife. Indeed that the emergencies incident to the 
desperate conflict thus involved in the administration of 
Christ, are now actually upon us, is a fact to which it is 
simply impossible any one should be oblivious. The 
tread of the advancing columns, the thundering of the 
artillery, the trembling of the ground beneath us, tell 
us that the fight is now raging, the battle now going on. 

Hence as I look abroad upon this great battlefield, 
I see uplifted two opposing standards. These are the 
representatives of the opposing kingdoms of light and 
darkness, of good and evil, so frequently spoken of 
and so universally taken for granted in the word of 
God. The one is the standard of Satan, the prince 
and leader of all the fallen Hierarchies and whose dis- 
mal shadow falls gloomily upon the dark legions that 
rally for his defense. Under this standard are mar- 
shalled all the Christian's enemies, the enemies of God 
and man a numerous host, a mighty army, thoroughly 
disciplined and panoplied for the fight. 

This army may be distributed into three grand di- 
visions. 

The first embracing all the legionary hosts of hell, 
the fallen angels of ranks and orders, innumerable con- 
fraternities of evil spirits, principalities and powers and 
the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual 
wickedness in high places — these are ever hanging on 
the Christian's pathway, striving with every variety of 
desperate assault and malignant device, to accomplish 
his utter discomfiture and everlasting overthrow. 

Angels our march oppose, 

Who still in strength excel; 
Our secret sworn eternal foes, 

Countless invisible. 



132 ' THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

From thrones of glory driven 

By naming vengeance hurled, 
They throng the air and darken heaven, 

They rule this lower world. 

But subordinated to these and with them associated 
under the same command are other hostile elements. 
Of these the sinful world especially, which may be re_ 
garded as constituting the second grand division of this 
vast army. The world with its principles, its practices 
and with all its God-resisting tendencies, is but the 
natural ally of the kingdom of darkness, as it springs 
directly from and is in special sympathy with the 
Prince of the power of the air, who is also called the 
god of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the 
children of disobedience. 

But the third grand division of the enemy's army 
may be recognized in that carnal element, remnants of 
which may still be found, secretly lurking in the Chris- 
tian's own heart and in the hearts of men generally, the 
flesh armed with all unhallowed appetites and treacher- 
ous inclinations, fleshly lusts that war against the soul, 
the law in our members warring against the law of our 
minds, bringing us into captivity to the law of sin and 
death. 

Such, then, in brief, are the Christian's enemies ; 
such the forces with which he is called to contend, ene- 
mies whose single aim is the subversion of all that is. 
good in the world, the Bible, the Sabbath, the Church, 
the School, the Home, the abettors of legalized wrong, 
and perverters of public morals generally, enemies nu- 
merous, malignant, subtle in their movements and des- 
perate in their assaults ; not simply bad principles, evil 
practices, and depraved irregular desire, but with these 
and back of these myriads of fallen intelligences, virulent 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 133 

spiritual entities, superhuman, world-ruling powers. 
These all subordinated to the purposes and associated 
under the command of theirgrim leader, Satan, andinhis 
nature participating, I even now descry in the dim dis- 
tance an ominous host, not, however, awaiting the as- 
sault, but in seried rank and file advancing over the 
embattled plain, "with helm and dart and orbed shield 
and under spread ensign, moving nigh in slow, but firm 
battalion." 

But turning, I behold an opposing standard lifted 
up. It is the standard of Christ, the sign and rallying 
point of a heroic band, who, responsive to the voice 
of their great Leader and by kindred sympathies 
blended in one common struggle, have thickened on the 
field of fight ever since the light of the first promise 
dawned upon the darkness of earth. Under this stand- 
ard is every man loyal to the truth and to humanity's 
good, enlisted as a soldier and as an aspiring candidate 
for all the martial honors to be achieved in the army of 
his God. And, indeed, it is only in this relation that 
he can ever hope to withstand the forces arrayed against 
him. Isolated, he is powerless. Hence to the standard 
of Christ he must rally or perish forever. 

And, never, let me say, did soldier rally to the 
standard of so renowned a leader as is the Captain of 
our salvation, the Prince of the kings of the earth, the 
head of all principalities and powers, the Lord of hosts 
is his name, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord 
mighty in battle. Many an illustrious leader has trod 
this earth with whom to be associated in battle was 
deemed no ordinary honor. Next to the honor result- 
ing to them from the relation they sustained to the 
cause of American freedom, it was to the day of their 
death the proudest boast of the heroes of the Revolu- 



134 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

tion that they fought under the immediate command of 
Washington. It was the most cherished memory of all 
the after life of these venerable men that they had been 
associated under the command of that great master 
spirit, through all the varying fortunes of that mighty 
struggle that gave birth to a nation's liberties. How 
often indeed have I seen the soldier of the late Civil 
War spring to his feet in conscious pride, at the bare 
mention .of the name of his favorite commander. How 
grandly flames out in the face of the old soldier the 
spirit of thirty years ago, as he speaks the names of the 
great captains under whose command he waged the bat- 
tle for the Union, or proudly tells to his children's chil- 
dren the deeds of valor done under the leadership of a 
Sherman, a Sheridan or a Grant. Speak but the name 
of the brave Reynolds, for instance, whose bronze 
statue from its proud pedestal facing the setting sun 
overlooks the field where, at the head of his column, he 
fell a martyr to his country's cause, speak, I say, but his 
name in the ear of one of his veteran soldiers and you 
stir every drop of blood in his veins. With that name 
he associates the victory of Gettysburg and the glory 
of war's sublimest achievement. And, yet, how vastly 
superior the honor consequent upon an association 
under the immediate command of the great Leader of 
the faithful in that infinitely more momentous struggle, 
in the final glorious issue of which shall be realized the 
disenthrallment of earth from the dominion of error 
and the complete discomfiture and everlasting over- 
throw of all the powers of darkness. 

Under the banner of this great Leader, then, does 
the Christian soldier go forth to battle. It is Christ's 
majestic form that leads him to the conflict. It is His 
infinite skill that makes his courage triumphant. It is His 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 135 

great name that adds lustre to his every achievement 
and reflects still more abundant honor upon his head 
already wreathed with the laurels of a myriad victories. 
How sublime the privilege then, of fighting under the 
leadership of such a Captain. Or, shall the hero of the 
cross be all unconscious of the dignity of his position, 
or dead to all sympathy with his great Leader's name? 

The name high over all, 

In hell, or earth, or sky; 
Angels and men before it fall, 

And devils fear and fly. 

Is that a flag of honor or of dishonor, then, that 
waves above the head of the Christian soldier? If 
nothing else, its antiquity commands my respect. I 
love the flag of my country, because it is old, because 
it is no mere experiment, no design of yesterday or im- 
becile device of the hour, or of a traitorous ingenuity 
but a mighty fact in the world, attested by conflict and 
bloodshed and victory. I love the flag of my country 
because great men made it and brave men died for it, 
because it has come down to me well tried in the storm 
and honored by the many scars of battle. I love the 
flag of my country, because however modified in form 
or device, it is nevertheless the same old flag in all 
epochs and in all the world meaning the same thing, 
protection to the American citizen, the security of his 
inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
piness, because it is the ideal representation of all that, 
as a nation, we are and of all that we hope to be. I 
love the flag of my country, because it is the flag of 
Washington, the flag of the Revolution, the flag of 
national, redemption, because at Bunker Hill and Sara- 
toga, at Valley Forge and Trenton, at Monmouth and 
Yorktown, at Lundy's Lane and New Orleans, at An- 



136 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

tietam and Vicksburg, at Gettysburg and Richmond and 
all over this great land of ours and on all the broad 
seas even to the Philippine Isles, heroic men bore it 
with them to the perilous edge of battle where it be- 
came the inspiration of the living and the winding 
sheet of the dead. I love the flag of my country, be- 
cause tyrants hate it and slaves envy it, because though 
traitors smite it, God defends it. I love the flag of my 
country, because it is to-day and shall be to all men 
and for all time to come, the honored symbol of an 
unbroken nationality, the gorgeous ensign of a free 
Republic, indicative at once of her heroic impulses and 
of her transcendent destiny, because for more than a 
hundred years it has waved alike in the van of our ad- 
vancing armies and of our advancing civilization. 
Wave on, then, "Old Glory," on this continent there 
is room for no other, wave on triumphant, wave on till 
the end of time with thy stars and stripes, the hope of 
thy friends, the terror of thine enemies. I cling to 
thee as to the remembrancer of a glorious past and as 
to the pledge of a still more glorious future. 

But loving the flag of my country much, I love the 
flag of redemption more. I love it because it is old. 
It is that same old flag that from the dome of heaven's 
capital floated out upon the immensity, the unchal- 
lenged symbol of God's supremacy and power, while to 
the music of seraphic lyre, the ages of a by-gone 
eternity sped their way. It is that same old flag that 
waved in the van of the faithful host that put to dismal 
rout the rebel angels and from the Empyrean heights 
hurled them headlong down to bottomless perdition. 
It is that same old flag, which more than eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, was planted by angel hands on Bethle- 
hem's lowly shed and whose one glory-beaming star, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 137 

not only lighted up all the surrounding hills with efful- 
gence divine, but over the abyss of gloom, flinging soft 
radiance upon the vision of eastern Magi lured them 
from their native land and contemplations deep, even to 
that hallowed spot where in his rough-hewn manger- 
cradle the sleeping infant veiled the smiling God. Thus 
handed down to earth by angel messengers, to this flag 
have marshaled the faithful of every age and of every 
hemisphere. . And ever since the first assault on Satan's 
kingdom down even to the present, has this flag waved 
in the van of the covenanted hosts of God's elect, its 
beauty undarkened by a single shadow, its luster untar- 
nished by a single defeat. Never has this flag suffered 
dishonor, never has it trailed in the dust, but over the 
scattered ruins of sin's demolished strongholds, it still 
waves triumphant from the citadel of truth, the emblem 
of the Christian's renown and the pledge of his eternal 
reward. Wave on, then, thou flag of a myriad vic- 
tories, wave on forever, for where thou wavest shall 
ever gather that love-plighted band who esteem it their 
peculiar glory to bear thee onward in the fight and their 
sublimest privilege underneath thy sheltering folds to 
die. 

With whom then is the Christian associated under 
this flag, who are his fellow soldiers, his allies, his com- 
panions in arms? Intimately identified as is the Chris- 
tian with the administration of Christ, it becomes a 
mighty bond of union between his soul and all the in- 
numerable agencies that have contributed to its pro- 
gress, whether visible or invisible, whether human or 
angelic. 

The first grand division then of the army of Christ 
and with which the Christian comes into closest sym- 
pathy, is composed of all good men. Here he comes 



138 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

into fellowship with Patriarchs and Prophets and Apos- 
tles, men of renown and the glory of their times with the 
martyrs and confessors of all ages, whose shrines are 
hallowed with the reformers and evangelists of every 
land, whose memorial is blessed and with all who swell 
the ranks of the faithful and make war on the enemies 
of God. 

But the second grand division of the army of Christ 
is comprehensive of innumerable, invisible agencies 
which though they fight not under the flag of redemp- 
tion as fights the Christian under it, yet are his faithful 
allies. Unconscious though we may be of the fact, yet, 
doubtless, " millions of spiritual beings walk the earth 
unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." Were 
the thin veil of sense for one moment rent, doubtless, 
would burst upon our astonished gaze the encompassing 
host of sympathizing spiritual agencies, even as burst 
upon the vision of Elisha's servant the mountains filled 
with horses and chariots of fire leagued for his protec- 
tion. And, doubtless, these invisible warriors formed 
by far the most numerous wing of that vast army em- 
ployed by Christ to repel and hold in check the in- 
vaders of his empire. And wherever they wage the 
battle against the powers- of darkness, we may rest as- 
sured that it is only in harmony with the designs of 
him, to the purposes of whose administration are sub- 
ordinated all the activities of the universe. Hence by 
all the sublime and immortal sympathies of f aith ^nd 
hope and love does the Christian stand allied, with all 
the celestial hierarchy in the subjugation of Satan's 
kingdom to the dominion of the Messiah. And who 
can be insensible to the dignity of such an association? 

Thus, my brethren, have we surveyed this great bat- 
tle field. We have seen the disposition of the belliger- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 139 

ent armies and how the forces of each are marshaled 
under their appropriate leader. Between these oppos- 
ing forces is hostility sworn and eternal. For six 
thousand years already has the battle raged. Sharp, 
indeed, has been the contest; unrelenting the strife. 
The universe has been thrown into convulsions. All 
along the pathway of the ages has been heard the shout 
of the assailants, the startling war cry' resounding 
through earth and heaven. 

One mighty battle especially may here be noted, as 
in itself decisive of the entire conflict, and as its results 
were but the preludings of virtue's ultimate triumph. 
Previous to this battle, the contest had indeed seemed 
doubtful. Sometimes the faint heart had almost trem- 
bled for the issue. Victory would then seem perched 
on the standard of Satan, and the demon shout of tri- 
umph be heard reverberating through all the empire of 
darkness. Then, again, would the standard of Christ 
briefly appear in the ascendant and its jubilant armies 
make still bolder invasions. Thus for ages had victory 
vacillated between these opposing powers, when Christ 
himself, the great standard-bearer of the faithful, leav- 
ing his throne in the heavens, takes the field in person. 
But now a new era dawns upon the strife. His pres- 
ence only vexes into still more unmitigated hostility the 
hearts of the assailants. Numerous indications of 
fiendish malignanity foretoken the final onset. Coun- 
cils of war are held, the plan of the battle is laid. On 
Golgotha's Hill, the confronting lines of the contending 
armies, ominously wait and watch. But the decisive 
hour comes on apace. Lo ! that hour is come — the 
hour in which the great champion of the faithful host, 
lifting his standard to Calvary's brow, enters into deadly 
•combat with the combined powers of darkness, en- 



140 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

counters and conquers without sympathy and without 
help the whole energy of evil. Now is witnessed the 
boldest assault hell ever made on God's divinity, while 
in her own heart she receives a wound for whose heal- 
ing there is no balm. O, what an hour is this? It is 
the great crisis hour of all time, the culminating of the 
struggle of all the ages, decisive of victory for good or 
evil, for heaven or hell. Nature stands in dread 
amaze. 

A solemn darkness veils the skies, 

A sudden trembling shakes the ground. 

But now the fury of the onset is past, the smoke of 
battle cleared away, and lo, from the height of that 
same Calvary still waves the flag of redemption, and 
shall continue to wave until, in the strength of this single 
victory, virtue shall forever triumph and Christ our 
Saviour reclaim the dominion of an alienated world. 

Still, this single victory of his great standard-bearer 
was not, by any means, the complete destruction of the 
Christian's enemies, only the breaking of their power, 
and as such the pledge of their ultimate and everlasting 
overthrow. Though Christ has done much, he has left 
something yet for us to do. The conflict, though now 
no longer doubtful, is by no means ended, but must in 
some sort be reproduced in the history of the church, 
and in the experience of the individual Christian to the 
end of time. Hence, the exhortation, " Thou, there- 
fore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus- 
Christ." 

II. This brings me to notice in the second place 
some of the qualities essential to the perfection of the 
Christian's character considered as a soldier. 

The Apostle here, however, indicates but a single 
quality as essential to the perfection of such a charac- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 141 

ter — the enduring of hardness. This is indeed com- 
prehensive of all that is essential to the perfection of 
the character of a soldier in the Christian as in ordi- 
nary warfare. "Thou, therefore, endure hardness as 
a good soldier. 

Never did the sun shine on better soldiers than 
those that have from time to time gone forth from our 
midst to do battle for our country's cause. Well may 
America be proud of her soldiers, in whom, even in the 
judgment of military experts of foreign countries, com- 
bine such qualities as places them at the very head of 
the list of those distinguished for bravery and skill in 
battle. They are emphatically good soldiers. God 
himself teaches their hands to war and their fingers to 
fight. And in the qualities they have ever so conspicu- 
ously exhibited on the field of battle, do we recognize 
those that should ever characterize the Christian sol- 
dier. 

And, first of all, must the Christian soldier arm 
himself and ever keep his armor bright. ' * Wherefore, " 
says the Apostle, "take unto you the whole armor of 
God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day 
and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having 
your loins girt about with truth, and having on the 
breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with 
the preparation of the gospel of peace ; above all, taking 
the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench 
all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet 
of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the 
word of God." This, then, my brethren, is the whole 
armor of God, thoroughly invested in which, the Chris- 
tian warrior is invulnerable and immortal. It is fabled 
of the ancient heroes that their armor was forged by 
Vulcan, one of the heathen gods. But the Christian's 



142 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

armor is really divine, forged not in Vulcan's dreary 
caves, but in heaven itself, by the arm of divinity, on 
the anvil of eternal love. And more than this, it is 
always available. The gates of the celestial armory are 
always open. Thither may the Christian soldier ever 
enter, and coming thence, clad in panoply divine, go 
forth invincible to the fight. 

Then, also, must the Christian soldier be ever vigi- 
lant and devout, " Watching unto prayer." Indeed the 
want of vigilance on the part of the soldier is, perhaps, 
of all causes, the most disastrous in ordinary warfare. 
More battles are won through subtlety and stragetic 
skill than by open and direct assault. For what avail 
even the most thoroughly equipped and disciplined 
troops, the most advantageous and strongly fortified 
position and the most orderly camp arrangements, if 
there be no sentinel at the outposts, no advanced guard 
to signal the enemy's approach. Eternal vigilance is 
then, to the Christian soldier, indispensable. His 
enemies are fierce malignant, their method of warfare 
peculiar. It consists in wiles, in feints, in decoys and 
in masked batteries. Let, then, the Christian soldier 
be always on the outlook, never sleeping, never heed- 
lessly straying beyond the pickets, lest he be surprised, 
lest he be decoyed into fatal ambuscades, or fall under 
the fire of the enemy's rangers. 

Then, also must the Christian soldier catch the spirit 
of his leader, the inspiration of the battle. In every 
war there is some ruling, predominating spirit, in which 
every true soldier must participate, otherwise, indeed, 
he is a mere machine, a sordid, mercenary, unreliable, 
inefficient. It is no sordid, mercenary spirit that per- 
vaded the ranks of the soldiers of this mighty Republic 
in the war for the Union, but the spirit of a lofty 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 143 

patriotism, an unconquerable love of country and of 
home, an unquenchable spirit that flamed and flashed 
out in the battle like lightning from the clouds of 
heaven. There is a spirit pervading the administration 
of Christ, the possession of which is essential to the 
perfection of the Christian's character, considered as a 
soldier. This is the spirit of Christ, an impulse direct 
from heaven, from the throne of God, which, with elec- 
tric power, thrilling along the ranks of the faithful, kin- 
dles heroic ardors and unconquerable resolves. It is 
the spirit of the Pentecost, ''the spirit not of fear, but 
of power and of love and of a sound mind." 

Then, also, must the soldier of the cross be ever 
prompt and implicit in his obedience, shrinking from 
no command, however irksome or painful the duty it 
enjoins. It is one part of the soldier's obligation to 
submit to discipline, to obey implicitly the command 
of his superior, even though ignorant of the reason upon 
which that command is based. This implies unlimited 
confidence in the wisdom and skill of his superior, a 
conviction that the command is right, though he may not 
be able to see just why it is so. "Forward, march, "says 
the captain, and instantly every nerve and muscle in 
the army is in motion. No halting to inquire whither 
no discussions as to the expediency of marching. 
"Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die." "Forward, march," says 
Christ, and though the Red Sea with all its fathomless 
depths and threatening foam-crested billows is just be- 
fore us, we must go forward. 

But, with all, must the soldier of the cross be cour- 
ageous, bold and intrepid in the hour of danger. How- 
ever perilous the command he may have received, let 
him faithfully execute it, reckless of danger in the (lis- 



144 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

charge of duty. And, as a soldier in the army of his 
God, the Christian will find sufficient to test his in- 
trepidity to the utmost. The redoubts of the enemy 
must be scaled, his strongholds assaulted and carried by 
storm, his garrison routed and put to the sword, his 
galling fire sustained for hours together, altogether de- 
manding a courage more than equal to that required in 
any other conflict whatever. For how many who have 
proved themselves sufficiently brave for all the pur- 
poses of ordinary warfare, imperiling their lives amid 
storm of shot and shell on many a hard fought battle- 
field, have, after all, been wanting in that moral cour- 
age required for those more daring exploits against the 
kingdom of Satan, incident to the Christian warfare. 

How grandlv did Paul vindicate his right to the 
highest honors of Christian knighthood, in that memora- 
ble hour when entreated by the church at Caesarea not to 
go up to Jerusalem owing to the dangers that awaited 
him there, he exclaimed, " What mean ye to weep and 
to break my heart, for I am ready, not to be bound, 
only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the Lord Jesus." 

These, then, are the qualities essential to the perfec- 
tion of the Christian's character considered as a soldier. 
Such the elements that have combined in the character 
of all those heroic men who have rendered illustrious 
the progress of Christianity. These, then, are the he- 
roes, whose deeds of valor I delight to celebrate ; 
heroes, who, like Moses have chosen rather to suffer 
affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the 
pleasures of sin for a season; heroes, who, like Joshua, 
have stood up in the midst of a crooked, perverse and 
sinful generation, among whom they have shown as 
lights in the world, saying "as for me and my house 
we will serve the Lord heroes, who, like Paul, have 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 145 

looked up even from the midst of bonds, imprisonment 
and death saying, ''none of these things move me"; 
heroes innumerable, invincible, who through faith sub- 
dued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained prom- 
ises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the vio- 
lence of fires, escaped the edge of the sword, out of 
weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens ; heroes of the 
cross, whom though, perchance, all unknown to fame, 
unchronicled and unsung, nor hope, nor fear, can ever 
seduce from their allegiance to the king, eternal, im- 
mortal, invisible, who, having enlisted in the army of 
their God, are determined to fight on till they die, who, 
conscious that heaven or hell is staked on the issue of 
the battle, are resolved to "endure hardness as good 
soldiers of Jesus Christ." And though it may not be 
theirs to fall on crimson battlefields, fighting in their 
country's cause or die in gory beds amid strains of 
martial music or roar of booming cannon, though no 
monument of massy marble towers above their sleeping 
dust with proud inscription "Here lies the brave," yet 
they die fighting for a country, a better country, that is an 
heavenly, and upon a battlefield yet more renowned in 
sight of the glory-capped towers of heaven, while angel 
choirs chant the soft requiem of their departing spirits, 
and the monument of their fame, rising in peerless gran- 
deur above the walls of the everlasting city, glitters with 
their flaming epitaph written by the hand of God, "They 
shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy." 
• III. But, finally, we notice some of the motives that 
should ever prompt the Christian to secure and main- 
tain the character of a good soldier' of Jesus Christ. 
And, first, the certainty of victory and the distinguished 

honor accruing to him therefrom. The Christian is 

10 



146 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

always victorious and victory always brings honor. 

The crown of honor that now decks the brow of 
each of the brave men that have fought their country's 
battles was placed there by the hand of victory, a crown 
royal and to which a grateful nation this day reverently 
bows down. But how perpetually through all the arena 
of Christian conflict is heard the Apostle's exultant 
strain, " Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth 
us to triumph in Christ." 

But what victories does the Christian soldier 
achieve? He conquers the devil. And is there no 
honor in conquering the devil? He conquers the world 
and that, too, in a sense far more truthful and sublime 
than it was ever conquered by any of the earthly heroes 
that have claimed this distinction. He conquers the 
spirit of the world. And is there no honor in this, in 
conquering the world ; in overcoming its spirit of pride 
and selfishness and hate, and with all its pomp beneath 
our feet to shout the note of victory? But the Chris- 
tian conquers himself. And is there no honor in con- 
quering one's self? "He that is slow to anger is better 
than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he 
that taketh a city." 

But, again, the Christian soldier is encouraged to 
perform well his part yi life's stern conflict by the pros- 
pect of returning home after the battle is over. 

As the brave soldier kisses his wife and babe and 
tears himself away from the embraces of mother, sister, 
friend, and hastens forth to the field of death, he goes 
sustained by the hope that the conflict past, he will 
come again, wreathed with victory, his country's pride, 
and to his friends doubly endeared by the perils he has 
escaped and the many scars of battle. And, whether on 
tedious march, or lonely night watch, whether in his 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 147 

tent reposing, or on the perilous edge of battle, stand- 
ing, his thoughts still homeward turn. And as the fight 
thickens, and he moves onward in the face of shot and 
shell, over the bodies of his slaughtered comrades on 
into the very jaws of death, he says to himself, "I'll 
not play the coward, but now, I'll do deeds of daring 
that will make my country proud of me and my poor 
mother weep when she hears of it. 

But now the battle is fought, the victory won and 
the conquering heroes are coming home. Already we 
see in the dim distance their spread ensigns and catch, 
as they come floating to us on the breeze, the jubilant 
strains of triumph. Instantly, and from a thousand 
voices, the cry is heard, ''They come, they come. Who 
come ? The saviours of your country come ; the heroes 
that fought for your homes and your firesides and your 
God-given liberties come ; your victorious husbands and 
sons, fathers and brothers come. They come from the 
weary march and the lonely night watch ; from the toils 
of the camp and the perils of the field. They come 
sunburnt and bruised, wounded and scarred, but with 
honor crowned and with glorious victory. They come, 
to receive welcomes and greetings and tender embraces, 
a nation's thanks and a nation's benedictions. 

But now, as they bear their victorious ensigns 
through the broad avenues of their country's metropolis, 
or along the streets of their native city or village, the 
scene may be imagined but never described. Cannon 
booming, in honor of victory ; bells ringing out their 
merry peals, bonfires blazing, huzzas ascending, aged 
parents tottering forth from their lonesome hearth- 
stones, the father, to embrace and bless his valiant boy, 
the mother, with tears, to impress upon his bronzed cheek 
the tokens of her deathless love, while virgins clad in 



148 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

festal garments, come to wreathe with garlands of ever- 
green and myrtle their patriot lover's brow. 

And so it is and so it shall be with the Christian sol- 
dier. His battle is fought in a strange country, in an 
enemy's land. But it shall not last forever. The time 
is coming when he, too, shall come home. He knows 
that in that home a myriad kindred spirits are yearning 
for him. The thought of this inspirits him amid watch- 
ings and weariness. And even through the dark storm- 
cloud of battle, he looks up and sees the borders of his 
fatherland all radiant with that spirit-host, who, with 
eager eyes, are gazing down upon him, and with deeds 
of valor that make all heaven glad to hear of, he fights 
his way to a reunion with them. 

But now this battle is also fought, the victory won 
and the conquering heroes are coming home. I see 
them on their homeward march with Jesus the Captain 
of their salvation in their van. He is now bringing 
many sons unto glory. From beyond the mountains, 
from beyond the rivers, from many a hard-fought battle- 
field they come with waving ensigns shaded with 
branching palm, with jubilee and shout triumphant, even 
to heaven's gate they come. And now as they near the 
gate of the celestial city, all heaven is astir with some 
great movement, while from his lone and silent watch 
tower the angel sentinel cries, "They come, they come!" 
Then from tongue to tongue and all along the tele- 
graphic line of angel watchers is signalled onward, even 
up to the throne of God, "They come, they come." 
" Who come ?" says a voice from the throne. Back the 
answer is borne, "The heroes of the cross are come." 
From beyond the mountains, from beyond the rivers, 
from many a hard-fought battlefield they come, led by 
the King of glory up through the portals of the sky. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 149 

"Open the gates and let them in," says the voice from 
the throne. Now all at once yield the bars of massy 
light and wide unfolds the ethereal scene, while fully ad- 
vanced within the gates and for the first time appears 
the victorious ensign of the cross. The vision is 
greeted with loud acclaim. All heaven joins in the 
chorus. "Welcome, welcome! thou standard of the 
cross, welcome to thy place on Zion's hill. Welcome, 
thrice welcome, Thou great standard bearer of the faith- 
ful and ye myriads whom He led to victory against the 
hosts of hell, welcome to everlasting bliss and to your 
eternal home." Heaven's firm pavements now tremble 
to the tread of the conquerors as up the streets of the 
everlasting city they march to the throne of God. 
Angels, make way; stand to one side. You cannot 
march under that flag. This honor is not for you. 
None but the soldiers of the cross who fought beneath 
its folds in life's stern battle can walk under it now. 
None "but the redeemed shall walk there ; and the ran- 
somed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with 
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. " Angels, 
all you have to do is to stand on either side and gaze 
and wonder at the bright legions as they pass. Yes, 
gaze and wonder. Many wonderful things have been 
seen in heaven, but the most wonderful of all is that of 
a poor Christian soldier who has fought his way up from 
the very gates of hell to the gate of glory, conquering 
on his way the world, the flesh and the devil. The old- 
est Archangel who has seen stars kindled andstars blown 
out, has seen nothing so wonderful as this. But onward 
the triumphant army moves. Through mid-heaven ad- 
vancing, into the very Court and Temple of the Ever- 
lasting Father, they come. 

Now comes the distributions of rewards. Many a 



150 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

soldier of the republic, after the battle is over, comes 
home only to be unrecompensed and forgotten by the 
very leader whose interest he subserved, — "a beggar 
through realms his valor saved." Not so in the Chris- 
tian warfare. His claims are not ignored. He is not 
neglected in the distribution of honors. "To him that 
overcometh will I give to sit with Me on My throne." 
Now the crown is put on his brow ; he is setup on high 
on a throne ; a sceptre is put in his hand ; he partici- 
pates in the government of the universe ; he is now a 
king and a priest unto God. 

But in the case of those who go forth to ordinary 
war, there are many who never return to share in the 
rewards of victory — many a brave fellow bites the dust. 
He falls at the cannon's mouth, or in dreary hospital 
pines his life away, without sister, mother or friend, is 
buried without ceremony. No stone tells where he lies, 
or perhaps his lifeless body is left on the field, food for 
dogs and the birds of the air. Not so in the spiritual 
warfare. Christ will bring all His soldiers off the field. 
He will not leave their lifeless bodies food for dogs or 
hungry vultures, but every one shall come home at last 
to greet the glories of immortality. 



CHAPTER VII. 



^fountains of Utosingg lUbealeir, 

And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. — Gen. 
21, 19. 

A proverb has been denned to be the wit of one and 
the wisdom of many. It is the result of the experience 
of past ages gathered up and formulated the sum of its 
teachings in a single sentence, briefly, tersely expressed. 
Thus, for instance, no little share of the world's deep- 
est experience has been gathered up and expressed in 
the proverbs, ''The darkest hour is just before the break 
of day," "Man's extremity is God's opportunity." 
And, no one, I think, ever realized more fully the truth 
as expressed in these proverbs than did Hagar, the 
Egyptian woman, Sarah's maid and the mother of 
Ishmael. At the moment in which occurred in her his- 
tory the incident of which the text is the chronicle, she 
was in the last extremity of loneliness and destitution. 
The appearance of Isaac, the child of promise in the 
patriarchal household, was to all an occasion of inter- 
est, and to Sarah, his mother, especially, one of exul- 
tation and triumph. Isaac was the divinely predestined 
heir to all the secular advantages pledged in the Abra- 
hamic covenant. Of this his mother was fully aware. 
Hitherto the hope of the house had centered in Ishmael, 
the son of Hagar, the bond-woman. With the birth of 
Isaac, however, this hope perished. His haughty 
mother, intolerant of even the possibility of rivalry, de- 

151 



152 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

termined upon the harshest measures. The slightest 
provocation was sufficient. Hagar and her son Ishmael 
must go. To Abraham she made her appeal, heartless- 
ly demanding their immediate expulsion. " Cast out 
this bond-woman and her son, for .the son of this bond- 
woman shall not be heir with my son, even with 
Isaac." Abraham, sorely grieved by the evidently un- 
just demand, hesitated to comply. But from God, who 
sees the end from the beginning, the patriarch received 
an intimation that it was better the cruel request be 
granted. So, early one morning, this poor mother, with 
her child and with only a little bread and a bottle of 
water in her hand, went out, homeless and friendless, a 
lone wanderer in the wilderness of Beer Sheba. But 
soon these limited supplies were exhausted, the bread 
and the water all spent. Desparingly the desolate 
mother threw her child under a shrub, and, retiring 
about a bowshot, sat down and lifted up her voice and 
said, "Let me not see the death of the child." But 
God was there. He is everywhere — ' 4 In the void waste 
as in the city full." "And God heard the voice of the 
lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of 
heaven, and said unto her, 'What aileth thee, Hagar?' 
Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where 
he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him in thine hand, 
for I will make him a great nation. And God opened 
her eyes," and instead of the death of her child, " she 
saw a well of water." 

When God opens our eyes we always see fountains 
of blessings. 

Not, however, that the fountains then revealed were 
not there in advance of any such special divine inter- 
position. Fountains of blessings are indeed flowing all 
around us, noiseless, yet ever near. That they are 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 153 

not recognized by us is no evidence that they do not 
exist, but simply that our eyes have not yet been opened 
to see them. That well of water in the wilderness of 
Beer-Sheba, so unexpectedly disclosed to Hagar, was 
there all the same, not, I think, as some suppose in the 
thick underwood of the desert sequestered from her 
gaze, but in full view, quietly, unobtrusively, with its 
limpid waters laving, so to speak, her very feet, though 
with mind distracted with grief and eyes suffused with 
tears, she perceived it not. The nearer the blessing, it 
would seem the more certainly is it overlooked. There 
is for us, had we but power to discern it, a blessing in 
everything, in every desert a stream, in every wilderness 
a well of water. Already in the general makeup of 
things have the sources of our enjoyment been antici- 
pated, in the original constitution of the universe, amply 
provided for. So that now the sphere of the special 
divine interposition is not in the world without, but in 
the world within, not in our environment, but in us. 
It is not the fountain God now opens, but our eyes 
rather, that we may see the fountain. 

Some indeed may be disposed to think that, that 
fountain in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba a miracle, in 
that instant originated, for Hagar's relief. I am in- 
clined to the belief rather, that that fountain was in no 
sense miraculously originated, but in the original con- 
ception of the creation involved, divinely predetermined 
and arranged for, that. God foreseeing that in the far 
distant future this poor outcast, famished and weeping, 
would pass by that way and in anticipation of her com- 
ing had, when He dug out the bed of the seas, dug out 
also in this desert place and with a view to this special 
emergency, this well of water. Certainly, not all this 
for Hagar. Yes, all this even for Hagar the bond- 



154 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

woman. Why not? Was it not for such as she this 
world was made ? 

I believe in forordination. I believe in the wise 
and beneficent pre-adjustment in the interest of hu- 
manity of all things in this universe in which we dwell. 
I believe in the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world. I hold that God put the blessings into things 
not retrospectively, or as the result of an afterthought 
but prospectively, originally, in the beginning and in 
anticipation of our coming. There is no after-think- 
ing with God. It was in no way supplementary, or as 
the result of a subsequent determination that God put 
fragrance in the rose or polarity in the magnet. The 
curative virtues in plant or mineral were not super- 
added upon reflection, but there from the beginning, 
waiting the recognition of those for whose healing they 
were originally ordained, even as the gold in the mine 
and the oil in the rock laid up for future emergencies 
and the advantages of those to whose God-opened eyes 
they should in the critical moment be revealed. 

Do we not discern in the every structure and 
physical conformation of the earth as in all cosmical 
beauties and harmonies, the traces of an anticipatory, 
activity through the dateless periods of a by-gone eter- 
nity, designing and fashioning into a conformity with 
the needs of its predestined occupants, this dwelling 
place of man, the evidences indeed of a divine fore- 
sight, involving a special provision, even for each of 
the great and numberless emergencies from the begin- 
ning, pending in human history. Viewed in the light 
of the vast issues that were determined by it, who can 
think of that silent rock-crested hill on the battlefield 
of Gettysburg — the approaches to which deserve to be 
paved with sapphire, and on whose royal summit should 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 155 

glitter forever a coronet of gold, star-gemmed — who, I 
ask, can think of that hill, so adapted as that on it 
should hinge the destinies of a hemisphere, but as hav- 
ing in some way, originated in an eternal purpose, but 
as having been in the all-comprehending providence of 
'God, as in the original plan and structure of the earth, 
anticipated and provided for, with a special view to the 
decisive results through its instrumentality achieved. 
When the great crisis was on us, and in the thick dark- 
ness incident to temporary catastrophe and defeat, God 
opened somebody's eyes to see in that lone and rugged 
eminence a nation's vantage-ground, and in it a fountain 
-of blessing to the world. And so, also, from the begin- 
ning of the creation, in that lone Syrian desert, had 
waited the coming of this poor Egyptian woman, that 
well of water, which in the moment of her extremity, 
God opened her eyes to see. 

Until God opens our eyes, we see no fountains of 
blessings. Hagar like in the wilderness, we wander de- 
sparingly to all our beneficent surroundings oblivious. 
A sort of triple vail hangs over us, Beyond this vail, 
and stretching far out — away into the infinite — are 
three great worlds, all luminous in their God-created 
splendor, and in each of which are springing, peren- 
nially, and for the recognition of the practiced eye, 
fountains of blessings, numberless and inconceivable. 
These worlds inter-depending and in order, one above 
another, are hanging all around us, in concentric circles 
-encompassing us — the world of sense, the world of in- 
telligence, the spirit-world. Now, with reference to 
each of these worlds, must God open our eyes — the eye 
of sense, the eye of intelligence, and the spirit's eye — 
otherwise, to us, the fountains of blessings sequestered 
there, will never be disclosed. 



156 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Practically, we are all born blind. Physically, in- 
tellectually and morally, we all come visionless into the 
world. Capacity for vision, there may be, but the ex- 
ercise of that capacity, is, in all, originally wanting. 
Whatever the latent capability, the exercise of that 
capability in what is called seeing, is attained only as 
God ordains, either mediately or immediately. 

Nearest us, then, as we may suppose, is the world 
of sense, the seeing of which is impossible, until God 
shall have opened our eyes, Always, however, except 
in the case of a miracle, God opens our bodily eyes 
mediately through the natural and ordinary processes 
of culture and experience. Of the infant, it can hardly 
be said that it sees, at least not in any sense as a con- 
scious act, or as an act involving the slightest volition. 
Sensation, there may be, but perception is wanting. 
In other words, it is only gradually, under the gentle 
tuition of the light that we learn to see, that God opens 
our eyes to the world of sense. And, always just in 
proportion as God opens our eyes in this respect, do we 
see fountains of blessings. 

A noble faculty is the human eye. He who made 
it must have understood the laws of light, to which it is 
so admirably adapted. It has a wonderful power and 
a wonderful world in which to exercise that power. 
Power to see the world of sense surrounding us is cer- 
tainly a gift of God, which it is impossible we should 
too highly appreciate. 11 Truly, the light is sweet and 
a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.' 
How, through the medium of bodily sight, continually 
do streams of blessings from the external world now 
into the susceptible soul. To the eye of sense in all, 
outward objects are fountains of blessings revealed. In 
material nature, even in the firmament above us, in the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 157 

earth beneath us, in landscape, in outline and color, 
rich and varied, in field and forest, in shapely leaf and 
expanding flower, in the world of art, in painting, in 
sculpture, in architectural designs, multitudinous, 
massive, in products of genius, multiplied and various 
and skill of the great masters, in forms of beauty, sym- 
metry and grace, innumerable, embodied, in the social 
world, in forms and faces of friends and loved ones, in 
features ethereal, almost divine, fascinating with beauty 
reflected in every line, and love's saintliness in every 
changeful expression, in cradled innocence, with tiny 
fingers, weaving the sunbeams, with eyes out of which 
the angel looks, kindling with the light of a dawning in- 
telligence, and the joy of a conscious recognition, in 
all, I say, to the open eye, are fountains of blessings 
revealed. 

But beyond this world, so obtrusive and so near, 
and amid whose sensuous beauties, we are only too 
prone to linger, there waits another world — the world 
of intelligence — in order to a perception of the con- 
tents of which there must also be a corresponding open- 
ing of the eyes of men, intellectually, a taking off the 
films from the mental vision. 

The mind's eye is originally closed and dormant. It 
needs to be opened, stimulated into activity, and the 
legitimate exercise of all its powers. It is, however, 
chiefly, indirectly through the natural and ordinary pro- 
cesses of development, incident to culture and experi- 
ence, that God opens the eyes of the mind. In all 
educational appliances, as providentially brought to 
bear upon us, whether through the teachings of ex- 
perience, or the training of the schools, is there an 
opening of the mind's eyes to the discernment of the 
contents of the intellectual world. To what prodigious 



158 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

grasp of intellect, to what sublime reach of mental 
vision have some, through these varied appliances, at- 
tained. Their eyes have been opened intellectually, 
and to their far-reaching glance, scenes of boundless 
magnificence unveiled. They have been endowed men- 
tally with power to see, with visual power piercing the 
veil of sense, catching glimpses of mysterious agencies 
and of processes mysterious, going on in invisible 
realms, penetrating beneath the surface of things, dis- 
cerning their imports, detecting their causes, their re- 
lations and their inner harmonies. 

For here also and always, just in proportion as God 
opens our eyes, do we see fountains of blessings. To 
the eye of the mind thus opened, all nature is teeming 
with life and love, with myriad imports, each the bearer 
of a special benediction to the soul. To the eye of the 
mind thus opened, the sense of the universe is evolved, 
in its steady gaze the significance of all its symbols un. 
folded. To its intelligent glance, creation's page is 
burdened with sublimest imports. 

There is a lesson in each flower, 
A story in each stream and bower. 

It was the poet Wordsworth whose mental vision 
God had purged that sung 

To me the meanest flower that grows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

And with the opened eye of a cultured and an ap- 
preciative intelligence, Longfeltow looks out over the 
pages of his favored volume and chronicles his feelings 
thus : — 

"Bright and glorious is that revelation 

Writ all over this great world of ours, 
Making evident our own creation, 

In these stars of earth these golden flowers. 



I 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 159 

And with child-like credulous affection, 
We behold their tender buds expand ; 

Emblems of our own great resurrection, 
Emblems of the bright and better land." 

Thus each new truth to the open eye of the mind 
revealed, whether as through the researches of the phil- 
osopher or of the theologian evolved, whether as per- 
taining to science or to art, to government or to relig- 
ion, is but one of a myriad fountains from which 
streams of blessings come flowing into the soul. A 
principle discovered, a fact ascertained, a law recog- 
nized, a problem solved, is always a liberalizing thought 
expanding agency, extending the empire of mind and 
always just to the extent in which it is such, a fountain 
of blessing to the world. 

But especially in those marvelous discoveries and 
inventions, that have from time to time so astonished, 
delighted and blessed mankind, there is, it would seem, 
something almost akin to a direct and miraculous open- 
ing of the mind's eye. How often, indeed, in the arid 
desert of human speculation and research, has the well 
of water unexpectedly sprung up at the very feet of the 
almost despairing investigator. Thus, almost miracu- 
lously, God opened Newton's eyes — In the falling of an 
apple — disclosing to him the secret law of attraction 
and gravitation, and in it a fountain of blessing to the 
world. Thus, unexpectedly God opened the eyes of 
Watt, disclosing to him a fountain of blessing in the 
possibilities of steam, a new application of which he 
tells us, flashed on his mind at once, and filled him with 
rapture. Thus, also, suddenly, were opened the eyes 
of a poor optician, as in the chance adjustment of some 
bits of glass was disclosed to him the principle of the 
telescope, as were also opened the eyes of Galileo, 



160 THE VOICE OU1 OF THE CLOUD. 

when, in the swaying of a chandelier, there was sug- 
gested to him the idea of the pendulum. 

But the limit of vision is not yet attained. The 
feeling oppresses us, that, beyond this world of sense, 
with which we are so familiar, beyond that unveiled to 
the eye, of mere natural intelligence, even there is en- 
compassing us, vet another world, a spirit-world. And, 
with this feeling is the conviction, thoroughly grounded, 
that, in order to the recognition of that world, there 
must also be a corresponding opening of the eyes of men 
spiritually, an imparting of spiritual vision to the soul, 
through a special divine interposition. 

And if, indeed, there be a spiritual world, to which 
we are related, and in which we are interested — as we 
are told there is — it is certainly not unreasonable to 
suppose that there should be some means by which we 
may attain a satisfactory knowledge of this wonderful 
fact, to a distinct and personal recognition of the con- 
tents of that world, and what of blessedness it may en- 
shrine. Or, is a mere theory, based on the testimony 
of some, who say they were inspired with the knowledge 
of the fact that such a world does exist, all that we 
have ? Are we, in this case, shut up to mere hearsay 
evidence ? Are we precluded the privilege of seeing 
for ourselves, and compelled, simply to acquiesce in the 
flying reports coming to our ears concerning this world, 
until, suddenly, perchance, passing through death's 
mystic maze, we are brought face to face with its start- 
ling realities? If there be a spiritual world, is there 
not for us a knowledge of that world more inti- 
mate than this, more direct, more satisfactory? One 
thing is evident. If any such world does exist, the eye 
of sense never saw it. The eye of reason, or of mere 
natural intelligence, even, however cultured, or trained, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 161 

has never yet pierced to its recognition. To the man, 
capable of the exercise of these natural faculties only, 
the apprehension of any supposed spiritual world is im- 
possible. Of that world he may have heard, he may, 
indeed, have indulged in some vague conjectures con- 
cerning it, yet, practically, it is to him an unreality, a 
far off dream-land in shadows wrapped, and in im- 
penetrable mystery. To his intellect come no disclos- 
ures of its contents, to his heart, no revelations of its 
glories. 

And, yet, I hold that despite the admitted imbecility 
of our mere natural powers in this emergency, the exist- 
ence of a spiritual world encompassing us, need be in the 
case of no man simply problematical, but a fact thor- 
oughly ascertained by a process sublime, satisfactorily 
demonstrated. This position, then, I now fearlessly 
assume, and against all comers hold it, sustained in it 
as I am, by the testimony of one who claims to have 
seen that world, and who, of its contents says, that 
< * they are spiritually discerned" that " God hath re- 
vealed them unto us by His Spirit." It is not, then, na- 
turally, but spiritually, that is, in a spiritual way, in a 
spiritual light, and by a spiritual eye, that we see the 
spiritual world. 

In this way, then, originates spiritual discernment, 
the seeing of the spiritual world, the sublimest function 
of the soul of man, and in order to, which a two-fold 
operation of the Spirit of God is indispensable, and, 

First. As originating spiritual light, a perceiving 
medium imparting to the spiritual world visibility and 
in which the contents of that world are, to the discern- 
ing faculty of the soul, disclosed. This, then, is the 
Spirit's prerogative, of his mission into our world, the 

primary aim. He is, of the spiritual world, the only 

1 1 



4 

162 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

accredited representative. To Him alone belong the 
exhibition and the interpretation of its glorious realities. 
The Spirit of God illuminates. He is a revealing agent. 
He reveals the spirit world. To alLbut the blind eyes 
has He, through the gospel, made that world visible. 
He takes of the things of God and shows them unto us. 
Without His illuminating ray we grope in darkness. As 
well might you go forth at midnight to behold the 
beauty of the landscape, or to trace the enamel of the 
flower, as without the light of the Spirit of God, go forth 
to the contemplation of the spiritual world. To your 
most penetrating glance, the obscuring vail is inter- 
posed, to your baffled vision no tint of lovliness is dis- 
closed. Nay. If you would behold the beauty of the 
landscape, you must linger till the day dawns, if you 
you would trace the enamel of the flower, you must wait 
the sun's rising and the descent of his disclosing beam. 
And if you would behold the beauty of that landscape, 
by the hand of divinity laid out on the distant shore of 
immortality and consecrated as the pleasure-ground of 
angels, and where amid delights uncreated and unalloyed 
revel the spirits of the just made perfect, you must go 
forth in the light of the Spirit of God. If you would 
seek out those bright and fadeless flowers, that bloom 
only within the spirit realm and with their charms regale 
your sight and with their rich fragrance embalm your 
heart, go not forth amid the damps and the darkness of 
nature's night, but wait until the dappled east proclaims 
the approaching day, the rising of the Sun of righteous- 
ness ; then, invoking the aid of his friendly beam, you 
may go forth in confidence wherever it points the way, 
for thus guided, you shall not go at random, nor yet in 
vain. But why wait ? The Sun of righteousness has, 
thank God, arisen ; a glorious unsetting orb, already to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 163 

the very zenith ascended. The darkness is past. The 
true light now shineth. From out the first promise shot 
athwart the way of our first parents an anticipatory ray. 
It was the early dawn, fore-tokening the perfect day. 
On all the secret paths intersecting the dreary desert in 
which has since wandered our humanity, has that ray 
descended ever and anon to the suddenly opened eyes 
of some poor out-cast in those paths treading, a well of 
water, a fountain of blessing revealing. And, lo, now 
the firmament is all aglow. "The day-spring from on 
high hath visited us." Celestial splendors are stream- 
ing forth in all directions. The spirit-world is unvailed. 

What we want, then, is not light, but an eye that 
can see the light, not a perceiving medium but a per- 
ceiving faculty. We want seeing power — power to see 
the spiritual world. For what is all this light to the 
man whose eyes are shut, whose vision is obscured, on 
whose face still hangs the light-intercepting vail. , The 
Sun of righteousness is in the zenith and on all the field 
of revelation, a glory the kindling of his unrefracted 
ray, but out of the depths of the vailed spirit looks no 
eye that can discern that glory. Standing, though we 
do perpetually on the immediate margin of a world of 
celestial brightness, yet to our souls enveloped in the 
obscuring medium of selfishness and unbelief, there 
comes not a solitary ray to testify to their consciousness 
the startling proximity of its immortal splendors. Light 
is all around us, but the closed eye perceives it not. 

Answering then, to the spiritual world encompassing 
us, there is, I hold, originally, in the soul of every man a 
latent capaeity for spiritual vision, an undeveloped sus- 
ceptibility for the divine through which when properly 
elicited and under the right conditions brought into ex- 
ercise, he is enabled to see that world and to enter into 



164 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

an actual participation of its blessedness. Now, this 
latent capacity for spiritual vision this undeveloped sus- 
ceptibility for the divine is what the Saviour calls *'the 
light that is in thee " that which is left of the divine in 
man. It is the spirit's inward eye, the eye of the soul. 
This eye of the soul originally closed, needs to be opened; 
dormant it needs to be stimulated ; blinded by the films 
of depravity, it needs to be purged ; latent and unde- 
veloped, it needs to be elicited into activity and legiti- 
mate exercise ; cultured and trained into a perception 
of the light of truth and the quick discernment of the 
contents of the spiritual world. 

Here, then, again, is the agency of God indispensa- 
ble. Not only is it his prerogative to vest in his all dis- 
closing light the spirit-realm, but also through His puri- 
fying agency to operate internally, opening the eyes of 
the soul to discern that light. Not only is it His to 
command the light to shine out of darkness, but also 
" to shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowl- 
edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" — 
His to lift up the spirit's sordid eyelids, that the light 
without may become the light within, rilling all the 
sphere of the inner being with pictures of heaven, with 
images of beauty, truth and love. 

" He comes from thickest films of vice 

To clear the mental ray, 
And on the eyes oppressed with night 

To pour celestial day." 

Always, then, in the voluntary surrendering of our- 
selves to the influences of the divine spirit in the way of 
a living faith is our spiritual eyesight restored. In the 
very instant of such a surrender, God opens our eyes 
spiritually. We come at once into the possession and 
into the exercise of a visual power, in its scope trans- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 165 

cending the world of sense, transcending the world of 
mere natural intelligence, even a visual power reaching 
into the world, over all, into the spirit-world. 
Now rends the light-intercepting vail. 

" The clouds disperse the shadows fly, 
The invisible appears in sight, 
And God is seen by mortal eye. " 

"We see the things which the natural eye hath not 
seen, neither the ear heard. We have a prospect of the 
invisible things of God. We see the spiritual world 
which is all around and about us and yet no more dis- 
cernible, by our natural faculties, than if it had no be- 
ing. And we see the eternal world, piercing through 
the vail that hangs between time and eternity. Clouds 
and darkness rest upon it no more. We already see the 
glory that shall be revealed." 

For here, also, and always just in proportion as God 
opens our eyes, do we see fountains of blessings. And, 

First. To the eyes of the soul thus opened, are 
fountains of blessings in the world of spiritual being 
always disclosed'. There is a world of spiritual being 
on the immediate margin of which we stand continually, 
but it is only to the eyes that God has opened, that the 
myriad forms in that world embosomed, become a reality. 
In his tent door, on the plains of Mamre, sat Abraham, 
in the heat of the day, when, suddenly, God opened 
his eyes and he saw a vision of angels, to him a foun- 
tain of blessing as well realized in those wonderful 
revelations of the divine favor and of the divine pur- 
pose with which during his protracted communings with 
the heavenly visitants, his heart was enriched. Elisha, 
the prophet, falling under the suspicion of the king of 
Syria, a great army was dispatched to Dothan to arrest 
him. And, as, in the early dawn the servant of God 



166 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

went forth, he was terrified as he beheld the threaten- 
ing multitude encompassing the city, and in his con- 
sternation he cried ; "Alas, master, how shall we do?" 
But, as with open eye, the man of God surveyed the 
scene, he saw what his servant could not see. He saw 
beyond the beleaguring hosts of Syria, another army — 
from summit to base of the adjacent hills and in seried 
ranks extending— God's great army — the celestial co- 
horts, waiting on the instant to interpose for his de- 
liverance, and unperturbed, to his servant, said, "Fear 
not, for they that be with us are more than they that 
be with them." And Elisha prayed, "Lord, I pray 
thee, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord 
opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw ; he saw 
what the eye of sense never saw — he saw a fountain of 
blessing in a world of spiritual being — he saw, and be- 
hold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of 
fire round about Elisha. And so ever to the vision of 
faith, which is the open eye of the soul, is the whole 
world of spiritual being unveiled — the city of the living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable com- 
pany of angels, the general assembly and church of the 
first-born God, the judge of all, the spirits of just men 
made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of the new cove- 
nant — all to the vision of faith now stand disclosed 
with fountains of blessings, always commensurate with 
the wondrous revelation. 

And, especially, as central in this world of spiritual 
being and as the inexhaustible fountain of all blessings 
is Christ Jesus to the open eye of the soul always re- 
vealed. In every believer is the experience of Hagar 
in some sort reproduced. In the last extremity, God 
opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, to her 
thirsting, famishing soul a fountain of blessing, calling 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 167 

her back to life, refreshing, invigorating and strengthen- 
ing her for her journey. So, also, when, as strangers from 
the covenants of promise, from the presence and the 
favor of God cast out, helplessly and hopelessly we 
wandered in the wilderness of despondency and doubt 
in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, them when 
all natural resources were exhausted, bread and water 
all spent, and to the last extremity of spiritual loneli- 
ness and destitution reduced, despairingly we sat down 
and lifted up our voice and wept. God saw our dis- 
tress, and responsive to our wail of sorrow piercing the 
desert air, the angel of the Lord called to us, as he did 
to Hagar, out of heaven, and said to us, as he did to 
to her, "Fear not, God hath heard the voice of thy 
cry," and with the gracious assurance, came also a 
gentle touch ; our eyes were opened, we saw a well of 
water. In Christ Jesus, the fountain of all blessings, 
was the well of the water of life revealed. Lo, sud- 
denly in the wilderness, waters gushed out, and streams 
in the desert, the parched ground, became a pool, and 
all the thirsty land springs of water, fountains of bless- 
ings, perennially flowing streams of the water of life, 
exhaustless, refreshing, gladdening the soul. Hence- 
forth, with joy, drawing water out of this well of sal- 
vation, gratefully we sing : 

' ' The well of life to us Thou art, 
Of joy the swelling flood." 

But, secondly, To the eye of the soul thus opened 
are fountains of blessings in the world of spiritual 
truth, always disclosed. And, especially, in Christ 
Jesus, who of that world is the essential truth, is a 
fountain of blessing to the open eye of the soul, always 
revealed. Shadows of approaching night were deepen- 
ing on the path, but a yet denser shadow on the hearts of 



168 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the two disciples as, sorrowfully from Jerusalem they 
journeyed to Emmans. There was one journeying with 
them, but their eyes were holden that they should not 
know Him. But a strange and secret heart-burning be- 
trayed a more than wonted presence, and the mysterious 
energy of His truth-revealing, and life-imparting word, 
until, suddenly, in the blessing of the bread, the foun- 
tain of all blessing was revealed. Their eyes were 
opened, and they saw in Him their risen Lord. In the 
company of the eleven disciples now stands the Saviour, 
to their senses demonstrating His own identity and to 
their intelligence, the awful mysteries of redemption 
unfolding. "Then opened He their understanding 
that they might understand the Scriptures thus, to 
their far-reaching vision, God's great purpose, disclos- 
ing, as through the ages running, and in it that foun- 
tain of blessing from the foundation of the world by 
God prepared for them that love Him, but of which, 
until then, they had but the faintest conception. "Then 
opened He their understanding." O, who can conceive 
of the breadth and compass and power of the vision in 
that instant wafted upon their souls. "Open Thou 
mine eyes," prays the Psalmist, "open Thou mine eyes, 
that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. " 
To all, who, with eyes thus opened, look into God's 
word, how wonderful, indeed, the things therein re- 
vealed ; what exhaustless fountains of blessings in that 
world of spiritual truth unveiled, in every fact a foun- 
tain, in every promise a well of water, whence flow 
perennially, to slake the thirst of the spirit travel-worn 
and weary, streams of refreshing and joy. But, 

Thirdly, To the eyes of the soul thus opened, are 
fountains of blessings in the world of spiritual possi- 
bilities also always disclosed. There is a world of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 169 

spiritual possibilities. Of this world do we now and 
then, through the spirit's illumination catch a glimpse 
and in every glimpse is a fountain of blessing revealed. 
When God thus opens our eyes, do we always see foun- 
tains of blessings in the world of spiritual possibilities 
around us — possibilities in men for salvation and a bet- 
ter life for spiritual freedom, for high attainments in 
virtue, for sublime companionship with God on earth, 
and an ultimate participation with him in the immor- 
tality and blessedness of heaven — possibilities in the 
Church for a growth and enlargement of which the 
present is but the foreshadowing, for the fuller and the 
more rapid development of her exhaustless resources in 
the conversion of the world, for a yet more general 
quickening and out-going of the spirit of Christian en- 
terprise in the interests of humanity and the more thor- 
ough awakening of all the moral forces now dormant in 
the age. 

When God thus opened Luther's eyes, he saw a 
fountain of blessing to the world, in the possibility of 
the great reformation. When God thus opened Wes- 
ley's eyes, he saw a fountain of blessing to the world in 
the possibility of a higher life for Christendom. When 
God thus opened the eyes, of Robert Raikes, he saw a 
fountain of blessing to uncounted millions in the possi- 
bilities of childhood, and of an interposition in its be- 
half, in its results so decisive, and in its influence so 
far-reaching, as that these centuries have furnished no 
incident of greater moral grandeur or more worthy of 
a place on the historic page. Always when any great 
movement or decisive development in the history of 
the world is pending, God opens somebody's eyes to 
see its possibility. Thus when God opened the eyes of 
Abraham Lincoln, he saw a fountain of blessing to the 



170 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

world in the possibility of a proclamation that carried 
with it the emancipation of a race, and inaugurated for 
enfranchised millions, an eternal jubilee. 

Again, when God thus opens our eyes, do we al- 
ways see fountains of blessings in the world of spiritual 
possibilities within us. Now and then, through a spe- 
cial gleam of divine light, do we catch a glimpse of 
what God has made us capable, and are startled by the 
sudden revelation of the wealth and magnificence of 
those intellectual and moral endowments, with which 
our nature has been enriched and by which it is dis- 
tinguished. Of these possibilities, Paul had a glimpse, 
and that the Ephesians might be able to see them, was 
the burden of his prayer. " That the God of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you the 
spirit of wisdom and revelation, m the knowledge of 
Him : the eyes of your understanding being enlight- 
ened ; that ye may know what is the hope of His call- 
ing, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance 
in the saints." He would have the Ephesians know the 
possibilities within them, and, to the fullest extent, real- 
ize them. "That He would grant you, according to 
the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might 
by His Spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell 
in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all 
saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depths, and 
height, and to know the love of Christ, which pass- 
eth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the full- 
ness of God." 

But again, when God thus opens our eyes, do we 
always see fountain of blessings in the world of spiritual 
possibilities above us, possibilities yet to be realized in 
the infinite beyond us. Not, however, that even to the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 171 

open eye of the soul is that of which our redeemed hu- 
manity is capable and to which it shall ultimately at- 
tain, fully unveiled. Not, even, to the eye that God has 
opened doth it yet appear what we shall be. And, yet, 
is not the future altogether a blank. Of the glory of 
that future there is not a total eclipse. Here and there 
are rifts in the clouds through which the trained eye may 
penetrate within the sphere of the limitless and the 
eternal, catching glimpses, at least, of what a blessed- 
ness shall, in the great hereafter, be the heritage of the 
child of God. God opened Paul's eyes, and, suddenly 
upon his enraptured soul, burst the vision of the possi- 
bilities of the future as in the glorified Christ demon- 
strated. "If so be," he exclaims. "If so be that we 
suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together." 
Glorified, "glorified with Christ, " to this goal advanc- 
ing is all humanity in Christ Jesus to this consummation 
predestined. Predestined "To be conformed to the 
image of His Son." "Glorified." Who can grasp the 
import of that word, or adequately conceive of the des- 
tiny to which it points. "And if children, then heirs ; 
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ;" "Heirs of 
God," of all that God is, His glory, his immortality, 
his blessedness. It is an heirship of God which we 
have jointly with Christ, only, in Him and through Him. 
In His right, ours inheres. So, then, of necessity, His 
inheritance becomes ours. In His destiny we must 
participate. Henceforth, with His right invested, we 
in His fortunes share. What of the glory of God He 
has inherited, we too shall inherit. To the height to 
which He has ascended, we too shall ascend. To the 
glorification He has attained, we likewise shall attain. 
"Glorified together," together, not separately, or the 
one without the other, but together. With Christ the 



172 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Christian suffers, with Christ he shall be glorified, with 
Christ on the cross, he shall be with Him on the throne, 
together, traveling the same road, together rejoicing at 
the same goal. " Glorified together." Equally with 
Paul is Saint John enraptured as with open eye he 
catches a glimpse of the infinite possibilities of the 
future, as in the glorified Christ demonstrated. True,, 
with Paul is he inclined rather to linger in the contem- 
plation of what the believer now is. " Beloved now are 
we the Sons of God." Thus far in the line of our des- 
tiny have we gotten on, even in this life to this dignity 
advanced. We are something pretty considerable, al- 
ready. "Now are we the sons of God." And though 
it doth not yet appear what we shall be, yet this much 
we do know, that when He shall appear, we shall be 
like Him. Like Him, not like Him, as weary and foot- 
sore he wandered homeless and friendless over the hills 
of Judea, not like Him, as in Pilate's judgment hall He 
stood thorn-crowned and all lacerated with cruel scourg- 
ings, not like Him, as on the cross bleeding and dying, 
He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
Me ?" — but like Him, rather, as the disciples saw Him 
transfigured on Tabor's brow, like Him, as through the 
opening heavens Stephen saw Him standing on the 
right hand of God, like Him as Paul saw Him at the 
gate of Damascus, like Him, as John saw Him on the 
lonely Patmos, like Him, as mine eyes shall see Him, 
when He shall come to be glorified in His saints and to 
be admired in all them that believe, when thus He shall 
appear we shall be like Him, glorified into his own image 
of immortality and blessedness, for then shall we see 
Him as He is. 

But here I pause. I can carry the thought no fur- 
ther. Imagination falters. The possibilities of eternity, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 173 

who can measure them ? Heaven opens on my eyes. 
Its limitless resources baffle all finite conception. I see 
over the summits of the everlasting hills the day of 
eternity breaking, the rising of God's unsetting sun, the 
glory of immortality kindling in every beam. I see 
humanity redeemed, robed and crowned, advanced and 
still advancing, changed into the image of the heavenly 
and with the only begotten of the Father on the Mount 
of His eternal transfiguration forever embosomed, in 
the glory which He had with the Father before the 
world was. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : 
but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and 
unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both 
Jews and Greeks ; Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of 
God." — I. Cor. i. 22-24. 

The doctrine of Christ crucified for the good of 
humanity is most humiliating to the pride of carnal 
reason. For wherever this doctrine is proclaimed it 
comes into conflict with the preconceived theories and 
deeply rooted prejudices of the human mind and heart. 
It requires the surrender of many favorite schemes and 
explodes the pretensions of many cherished inventions. 
In itself the germ of a new creation, the principle of 
a new order of things, it must in its unfolding, sup- 
plant what it cannot imbue with its own tendencies or 
subordinate to its own purposes. In a world pre-oc- 
cupied by alien principles, its presence can only be re- 
garded as an intrusion upon the quiet of mankind, an 
aggression upon established forms and institutions to 
be resisted sternly and to the bitter end. Never was this 
fact more fully exemplified than in that great contro- 
versy occasioned by the first preaching of the gospel, a 
controversy indeed, in all respects, the most vital of 
any of which our world has ever been the whole theater, 
and the whole ground of which is by the apostle here 
presented in the words before us. In this controversy 
three parties were interested, the Jew and the Greek 

174 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 175 

on the one hand and the Apostle Paul on the other. 
These, however, are but the representatives of various 
classes by whom the controversy, in the spirit of it, at 
least, has been continued even unto the present day. 

This controversy was concerning the means of hu- 
man elevation, the conditions of human progress. It 
had reference simply to the method by which our na- 
ture might be exalted, its powers unfolded and its 
highest happiness attained. In other words, it was 
simply an inquiry as to the instrumentality or agency 
through which that nature might rise from its present 
embarassed and imbecile condition to lay hold upon 
that glorious destiny for which it is ever struggling and 
ever sighing. 

Now in every controversy there is implied some 
truth, some fact or underlying principle admitted by 
all. For if every thing is denied, the ground of con- 
troversy is removed. Thus, in the instance before us, 
there were two or three great facts, at least, in refer- 
ence to which no difference of opinion seemed to exist. 

i. It was a fact admitted by all that our nature needs 
improvement, that its condition is abnormal, imperfect, 
sadly inferior to what it ought to be and to what it 
actually was in the beginning. The Jew had his para- 
dise, the Greek his golden era, the inhabitants of which 
were alike perfect and blissful, and of whom the men 
then living were but the degenerate offspring. To all, 
the human soul was an instrument out of tune, the 
functions of which had been interrupted and which, in- 
stead of harmonies, uttered only discord, 

2. It was a fact admitted by all that humanity is 
susceptible of improvement, that it is capable of some- 
thing far better than that to which it is naturally an 
heir, that it is capable of culture, of infinite development, 



176 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

of vast and indefinite growth and expansion, in a word, 
that it is competent to realize all that it is capable of 
anticipating. This, the Jew would not pretend to deny. 
To inspire such a belief in the capability of his nature, 
his whole religious training had contributed. To him, 
as a sacred trust, had been committed the lively oracles, 
every page of which bore some testimony to the possi- 
bility of human improvement and reform, and encour- 
aged the hope that the day of a glorious realization in 
this respect would ultimately dawn upon the race. 
To him the whole burden of prophecy was but the tes- 
timony of the Spirit of God, to an era in this world's 
history, which would bring to the individual, the regen- 
eration of all his powers and to our collective humanity 
a heritage of glory hitherto unrealized. Neither, in- 
deed, was the Greek less disposed to admit the capa- 
bility of his nature for improvement. He, however, 
spurning all outward revelations, looked only to the in- 
ward revealings of the light of reason. He regarded 
the longings of his nature as the token of its capability 
and as the pledge of its future unfolding. He could 
not look upon life as a mockery, or upon its hopes as 
doomed to inevitable disappointment. He knew the 
yearnings of humanity were but a prophecy of its des- 
tiny, and interpreted all its struggling instincts and up- 
ward reaching tendencies as pointing to a nobler sphere 
of activity and enjoyment to which it must ultimately 
be elevated. In his brain was thronging the ideals of 
an excellence which he knew must yet be realized. He 
knew that beauty, love and truth were germinant in the 
human soul, and would, under appropriate circum- 
stances, unfold in thoughts, feelings and characteristics 
commensurate with the world's loftiest ideals of perfec- 
tion. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 177 

But how much more intelligently could the Apostle 
admit all this. His apprehensions of the possibilitiy 
of human culture, were without indistinctness or mis- 
givings. He knew what humanity is, and of what it is 
capable. With a clearness of vision that belonged to 
neither of his opponents, he conceived of human des- 
tiny, and in a steadier light beheld the progress of his 
race to the goal of all it's aspirations. 

The real question at issue then, was, not concerning 
man's necessities, not concerning his "capabilities, not 
concerning the desirableness of human elevation or 
progress, or the possibility of it. but simply concerning 
the means through which that elevation might be se- 
cured, that progress realized. 

Here, then, the great controversy opened. For. as 
a means to the end proposed, the Jew required a sign, 
the Greek sought after wisdom, but Paul preached 
Christ crucified. 

In this controversy then, I imagine the Jew first of 
all, makes his appearance. He is in all respects a rep- 
resentative man, secular, bigoted, egotistic, exclusive. 
Especially is he thoroughly imbued with that sign-mania 
so characteristic of his nation. With his eye turned 
toward the heavens, as though every moment expecting 
some sudden manifestation of the supernatural, he 
comes upon the stage. Blandly addressing his oppo- 
nents he says : — 

"Sirs, I think myself happy in that J am thus per- 
mitted to represent the ideas and sentiments of my 
nation in this great controversy respecting the means 
of advancing the welfare of the human family. And 
now, sirs, I here distinctly affirm it. and in this I but 
give expression to the prevailing sentiment of my na- 
tion, that the means to this end can never be found 

12 



1T8 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

save in some sudden, visible and miraculous display of 
the divine power. I say then Sirs, that in order to this 
result, I require a sign, a sign from heaven. And in 
this I am fully justified, For by the oracles of God 
especially committed to my nation, I am taught to en- 
courage the hope of the coming of the great Messiah, 
who shall yet visibly appear on this earth, here to reign 
as a mighty, victorious, temporal prince, who. instead 
of falling a prey to his .enemies, shall subdue them all 
with an irresistible power and advance the family of 
David to universal empire. " He shall have dominion 
also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends 
of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall 
bow before him. and his enemies shall lick the dust. 
The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring 
presents : the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. 
Yea, all kings shall fall down before him, all nations 
shall serve him.'' And when the great Messiah shall 
have thus come, then shall be witnessed the dawning of 
that era by the prophets so long foretold in which the 
hopes of humanity for freedom and enlargement shall 
be fully realized. For unwonted prosperity shall char- 
acterize his reign. £< He shall come down like rain 
upon the mown grass ; as showers that water the earth. 
In his day shall the righteous flourish ; and abundance 
of peace so long as the moon endureth. For he shall 
deliver the needy when he crieth ; the poor also and 
him that hath no helper. His name shall endure for- 
ever : his name shall be continued as long as the sun, 
and men shall be blessed in him : all nations shall call 
him blessed." And not only so, bin when he, the great 
Messiah, shall thus come to receive the kingdom, it 
shall be conspicuously in a manner becoming his dig- 
nity and the granduer of his mission, not stealing into 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 179 

the world wrapped in swaddling clothes, a babe lying in 
a manger, but, as the prophet Daniel saith. his coming 
shall be in the clouds of heaven in pomp and in great 
glory. And now, Sirs, this most fitting display of the 
divine power, this sudden coming of the Son of Man 
from heaven to establish his kingdom on earth, and 
here visibly and victoriously to reign, is the sign, the 
very sign which I and my whole nation so imperatively 
require, and for which we are now patiently waiting and 
anxiously looking as involving the only means for the 
reformation and blessedness of mankind. '" 

Having thus spoken, the Jew retires and the subtle 
Greek comes upon the stage. He is a representative 
man, in spirit, philosophic, enamored of the speculative 
and of the arts of the rhetorician. 

'•' T see Sir," he said, addressing the Jew, "I see, in- 
deed, something of wisdom in what you say, mingled, 
however, with much of folly. You, Sir, require a sign 
a manifestation of miraculous power in the establish- 
ment of a world-wide beneficent empire. Power un- 
folding in a beneficent government, is, I admit, a good 
thing. Good government is power, lawfully exercised 
and philosophically applied in the economy of political 
life. But the supernatural in your method vitiates its 
feasibility. 

Having thus spoken, the Greek retires and Paul 
comes upon the stage, the rugged representative of a 
new life, and of a new era. Calm and collected in his 
conscious superiority, he addresses his opponents, say- 
ing, "Sirs, the means, by you suggested for advancing 
the welfare of the human family, though differing in 
their character, arealike, insufficient and unworthy." 

Addressing the Jew, "You, Sir, require a sign, some 
sensuous display of the divine power. And in this, 



180 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

you but exhibit the characteristic unbelief of your na- 
tion, and the fatal blindness of your fathers, which 
rendered them all "unconscious of the presence of the 
true Messiah, even when teaching in their midst. For 
though Himself the greatest wonder, and His whole life 
a miracle, they knew Him not, but perpetually de- 
manded of Him a sign from heaven, saying, 'What 
sign showest Thou ?' And, as did your fathers, so do 
you. But the sign you require, shall never be given, 
and the sign already given, the true sign from heaven, 
you have no eyes to see. To the blind it is always 
night. The Messiah has come, and even now is His 
kingdom in the earth, And if that kingdom be hid, it 
is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this 
world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not, 
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is 
the image of God should shine unto them." 

Having thus addressed the Jew the Apostle now 
turns to the Greek. "You, Sir, seek after wisdom. 
But, Sir, what has come of all your boasted wisdom, in 
the way of any permanent advantage to the world, what 
results through its instrumentality achieved, what pro- 
gress realized, what satisfactory goal attained ? What 
of all, I say, but a demonstration of the fact that through 
its instrumentality alone the reformation and rescue of 
a degenerate and perishing world is impossible. It has 
had its trial under the best possible conditions but with 
comparatively little success considered simply in itself 
or as a means of advancing the welfare of the human 
family. It had its mission and has accomplished it. 
It was simply disciplinary, providentially preparatory 
to the introduction of something better. Let the facts 
be adduced, let the experience of the ages testify. 
•'Where is the wise ? Where is the scribe, where is the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 181 

disputer of this world ? ' Can they be found ? That 
long line of philosophers reaching away back into the 
dimness of the distant and the fast receding centuries, — 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the rest of them — where 
are they ? Let them appear, let them come forth, let 
them, if they can, vindicate the claims of human wisdom 
as a world elevating agency by exhibiting the results of 
their labors during the four thousand years that are 
past. Let them declare what reformation they have 
wrought upon mankind, what idols dethroned, what su- 
perstitions abated, what ungodliness restrained, what 
practical impulse, in the direction of its legitimate goal, 
to humanity imparted. ' Hath not God made foolish 
the wisdom of this world' — demonstrated the utter ina- 
bility of your philosophy either to amend or save the 
children of men by leaving them so long to its guidance 
without any favorable result. The grand experiment 
conducted through so many ages and upon which so 
much depended has utterly failed. ' The world by 
wisdom knew not God,' and, as a consequence, knew 
nothing else as it ought to know. And now, Sir, the 
time has come for the trial of other means. And this 
means I now announce unto you. 'For after that in 
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, 
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save 
them that believe.' Hence, though the Jews require a 
sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, we are resolved 
to adopt, in order to the end proposed, the only means 
by God ordained. 'We preach Christ crucified.'" 

But just here the Jew, impertinently interrupting the 
Apostle, attempts more fully to vindicate his position. 
Kindling with indignation, he says to Paul : " Don't, 
Sir, presume to identify my position with that of this 
wisdom-seeking Greek. I am no Gentile, seeking de- 



182 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

liverance in vagaries and in rhetoric. I have as little 
confidence in his philosophy as you, Sir. It is simply 
frivolous and insufficient, a glittering congeries of in- 
comprehensible niceties. I, Sir, believe in Christ, but 
not in your Christ. I believe in a Christ yet to come, 
and yet to reign visibly among men. but not in a Christ 
already come, much less in a Christ crucified. I be- 
lieve in a future, living, reigning Christ, not in a past, 
dead one. Insult me not, Sir, by proposing the Christ 
you preach, that carpenter's son. that hanged man, as 
the Christ of God the true Messiah. It is an offense 
unto me, and to my whole nation. In no singular par- 
ticular does He correspond to the world's long cherished 
ideal of its great Deliverer. Instead of signs and won- 
ders, the tokens of Christlike authority, and the majesty 
befitting the Prince of the House of David, and the 
heir of unlimited empire, He forlornly yielded Himself 
to the power of His enemies, was arrested, insulted, 
put to death, crucified, ignominious! y crucified between 
two thieves. Your Christ, Sir, is not the Christ of 
prophecy, unless, indeed, weakness be power, helpless- 
ness, strength, poverty riches, defeat victory, ob- 
scurity renown : unless, perchance, influence over some 
dozen poor fishermen, be a kingdom, a crown of thorns 
the symbol of regal authority and a cross, the throne 
of unlimited empire. Frail, indeed, must be the 
world's hope thus trembling around One Whose life be- 
ginning in a manger, ended on a gibbet, Whose birth 
was that of a pauper, and whose death was that of a 
slave. " 

But just here the Greek interposes even yet. more 
vigorously insisting on his favorite means. -' 4 I must," 
he says, addressing the Apostle. "I must, Sir, con- 
tinue to insist on wisdom as the only efficient means of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 183 

human progress and reform. Not, Sir, that I object to 
your Christ through any merely Israelitish prejudice 
against His poverty, physical imbecility and death. 
There is in all this simply nothing absolutely repellant 
of my admiration of any real worth. Socrates was 
poor, Socrates perished the victim of the intolerance of 
his age. But that to which I do object is the supreme 
folly of preaching as the world's great Deliverer, one 
who though claiming to be divine was crucified. Suf- 
fering is hardly an attribute of Diety. To die on a 
cross is not particularly god-like. The gods are im- 
mortal. It seems contradictory. I, sir, simply seek 
after wisdom. But of this I find nothing in your Christ 
crucified. I object to it, then, as the means of advanc- 
ing the welfare of the human family because it is fool- 
ishness simply because it is altogether unphilosophical 
and absurd. Whatever that story may be that you 
preach and which you are pleased to call a Gospel, it is 
certainly a very slender thread on which to hang the 
hope of the world. I see nothing of wisdom in it, 
nothing of philosophy, not a truth rationally dem- 
onstrated. The archetypes of Plato the sublime cat- 
egories of Aristotle — where are they ? It is all his- 
torical, a mere narrative, simply an obituary, the 
biography of an unfortunate man, a baffled adventurer, 
who, though claiming to be divine and to work miracles, 
lived a life of poverty and died a death of shame — a 
story from beginning to end essentially crude, fabulous 
and legendary unreasonable, extravagant, disjointed and 
contradictory- — full of all sorts of vagaries, improbabil- 
ities and dreams. It embodies no system of truth that 
I can see, no deep speculations, logically stated and by 
subtle reasonings sustained. Indeed, sir, the story 
itself is distasteful, not even given to the world in an 



184 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

attractive form, but loosely, bluntly told by no means 
in a style rhetorical or in a scholarly way* And not only 
so, but this same story so loosely and so bluntly told, 
is to save the world simply through faith in its hero. 
Who ever heard the like? It is ridiculous. What rela- 
tion can possibly exist between such a means and the 
end proposed ? What conceivable influence can faith 
in the fact of such a life, or of such a death, have upon 
the destinies of the world ? do tell your story in the 
ears of babes of dupes and visionaries, but attempt not 
to palm it upon the intelligence of the wise or with it to 
stultify the reason of the philosopher." 

"'True,'' says Paul, in reply too all this, "true, we 
preach Christ not as a conqueror through the out- 
goings of mere secular power, subduing the world to 
his sway, not as a philosopher imbuing the world's in- 
telligence with the speculations of a finite reason or the 
dogmas of the schools, but we preach Christ crucified, 
and as such unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto 
the Creeks foolishness. Nevertheless, this is my theme, 
Christ crucified and this henceforth my mission among 
men to preach this Christ, as at once the life and the 
light of the world. For Christ sent me not to baptize, 
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, 
not with any human accessories prompted by vanity 
not as a matter of science or in the style of a philoso- 
pher trained in the schools, lest the cross of Christ 
should be made of none effect. And though you, Sirs, 
may hold my preaching in contempt as wanting in all 
the elements of efficiency, whether of power or wisdom, 
though you may stigmatize it as weakness on the one 
hand and as foolishness on the other, yet will I not 
compromise. I hold simply and exclusively to the 
terms of my great commission. ' I am determined 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 185 

not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and 
him crucified. 

" Neither, Sirs, let me assure you, is my preaching 
really so weak and foolish, as you in your blindness 
suppose. In the highest sense, it is wanting in neither 
of the great elements of efficiency you require. There 
are those, the called, to whom has come a special gift 
of discernment, whose eyes God has opened, who see 
things as they are. Hence, though to you, Sir, as a 
Jew, still persistently insisting on a sign from heaven, 
the sign of miraculous power, Christ crucified is weak- 
ness, and as such a stumbling-block, yet to the called, 
to the properly enlightened, He is the very thing you 
require. He is power. He breaks all fetters. He dis- 
enthralls the race. And, though to you, Sir, as a Greek 
seeking after wisdom, Christ crucified, is foolishness, 
yet to the called, to the thoroughly instructed, to those 
who have eyes to see, He is the very thing you seek. 
He is wisdom. He solves the hardest problems. He 
shows men the way out of the night of error, and 
guides them ultimately to the goal of their noblest long- 
ings. But, unto them which are called, Christ, the 
power of God and the wisdom of God." 

Here, then, in the review of this ancient controversy, 
it might, indeed, seem that the great contestants had 
come to an understanding at last that they had reached 
a common ground, agreeing precisely. Why, then, 
should not the contention cease? The Jew required 
a sign, the sign of miraculous power. Paul said, "Here 
it is. We preach Christ crucified, the power of God." 
The Greek sought after wisdom. Paul said, " Here it 
is. We preach Christ crucified, the wisdom of God." 

And yet, after all, is this agreement more in seeming 
than in reality, more in form than in fact. 



186 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

And, first of all, they failed to agree with respect to 
that in which the real elevation, the ultimate glory of 
humanity consists. The Jew placed that elevation in 
mere sensuous enjoyment in the aggrandizement inci- 
dent to a visible world-wide temporal dominion. To 
attain either in itself, or in His representative, the sov- 
ereignty of the world, with all the secular advantages 
incident to that sovereignty, was his ambition. He 
was absorbed in ideals of worldly magnificence, in a 
groveling passion for the splendors of state and the re- 
nown empire. And in harmony with the end proposed, 
was the means he required. He required a sign an 
exhibition, or manifestation of power. True, it was 
divine power he required, the power of God, yet not 
as internally or spiritually manifested, not as soul- 
quickening, soul-regenerating power, but power as 
secularized and degenerated into an object of mere sen- 
suous experience, meeting the individual from without, 
in bewildering displays of the supernatural. 

And in accordance with these, his sensuous predi- 
lections, were all his interpretations of prophecy. In 
the Messiah in that prophecy foretold and with whose 
expected advent he associated the ultimate glory of his 
race, he saw only a mighty all-conquering world Prince, 
subordinating his divine powers exclusively to secular 
ends, to the social and the political elevation of man- 
kind. Of a suffering, dying Christ, of a Christ crucified, 
he had no conception. Much less, if possible, had he 
any conception of the power of such a Christ, as in- 
ternally realized, and unfolded in a world-wide spiritual 
dominion, in which truth and righteousness should pre- 
vail, and the enslaved and weary heart of humanity 
find freedom and repose. Of a kingdom of the cross, 
he was altogether oblivious. Of any spiritual uplifting 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 187 

of humanity, through the influence of motives ad- 
dressed simply to its moral susceptibilities, he knew 
nothing. 

In all this, however, was the Jew but a representa- 
tive man, the representative of that sensuous material- 
istic spirit of all ages, which, oblivious to all the moral 
requirements and capabilities of our nature, takes no 
account of its relation to God and to eternity, but rec- 
ognizes simply in the gratification of worldly desire, 
incident to material prosperity, the highest goal of hu- 
man aspiration and endeavor. In any just conception 
of the true glory of humanity, is this spirit wanting. 
Its apprehensions of human destiny are all sordid and 
earthly. Its sighings are all in the direction of ma- 
terial aggrandizement. It has its goal, not, however, 
in any moral achievement within the sphere of our 
inner being, or in the modification of human character, 
but in the achievement of mere outward physical re- 
sults, in the various modifications of the secular life, of 
mankind, in dominion over nature, in the recognition 
and subordination of the diversified forces of the ma- 
terial world, especially in the establishment of benefi- 
cent government, in the production and conservation 
of well adapted and properly organized political insti- 
tutions, in the creation of free constitutions, and sys- 
tems of equal and independent laws, in well adjusted 
social systems — the compassing of these ends is, I say, 
the goal for which this spirit strives, and to which it 
would conduct humanity as involving the realization of 
its ultimate glory, its supreme good. In other words, 
it recognizes in mere secular advantages, in material 
prosperity, in the absence of physical evil, and in the 
multiplication of the condition of bodily comfort and 
sensual delights, the true destiny of humanity, the high- 



188 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

est elevation of which our nature is capable. Uni- 
versal sovereignty within the sphere of sense is its aim. 
Of that inward sovereignty, finding expression in do- 
minion over self, in high moral aim and purpose, in in- 
vincible patience and sublime endurance of suffering 
encountered in the way of an unswerving obedience to 
the behests of conscience and of God, this spirit knows 
nothing. 

By all, then, in this spirit participating, the only 
thing required in order to the completion of the mighty 
process of the world's uplifting, its amelioration and 
reform, is power. It is the old Jewish conception of a 
race regenerated and disenthralled, solely through the 
agency of material forces, externally applied, and to 
this end expressing themselves, in the various modifica- 
tions of the mere secular life of mankind. . 

Thus the moral nature of man is ignored, moral forces 
are excluded as not adapted to the end proposed. To 
this spirit Christ is, to-day, just what He was to the 
carnally minded Jews of His time. If recognized at all, 
it is so far only as his influence can be rendered tribu- 
tary to the secular advantage of mankind. His power 
as to its nature and results and the manner in which it is 
brought to bear upon the individual or the race, is in no 
way distinguishable from that of an Alexander or a Na- 
poleon. After all, Christ is only a secular prince, not, 
however, by any means supreme, but simply one among 
many that with Him share the dominion of the world. 
So long as Christ wrought His wonderful works within 
the sphere of sense externally before their eyes, the 
Jews adhered to Him as the embodiment of their fond- 
est hopes, but the moment He withdrew from their car- 
nal observation and wrought internally in the souls of 
men and with a view to their spiritual enfranchisement, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 180 

they discarded Him as a pretender. The power that 
could only with a few loaves and fishes feed so many 
thousands, the Jews could appreciate, but that which 
with the bread of heaven proposed to nourish their souls 
into eternal life, they failed to comprehend. The power 
of Christ that raised Lazarus from the dead, the Jews 
could honor and applaud, but that by which He refused 
to take Himself down from the cross they could only ridi- 
cule and despise. And such precisely, with respect to 
Christ, is the attitude of this spirit to-day. If His 
power can be secularized and subordinated to the world's 
material advantage, if it can be made to do duty as a 
police arrangement, or, as a substitute for bars and bolts, 
locks and keys, or, as contributing to the development 
of a coal mine, or, to an advance in the value of stocks, 
it is all well enough. tl If, only," it is said, "If only 
the religion of which He is the founder instead of busy- 
ing itself with the forgiveness of sins and the intangi- 
bilities of a supposed spiritual world could be secular- 
ized and in some way made conducive to a more sue. 
cessful getting on in this world, then, indeed, it would be 
a religion worth having. We want a religion of hu- 
irlanity, a religion that puts not vagaries into our brains, 
but elasticity into our limbs, not grace into our hearts, 
but bread into our mouths." It is the same spirit that 
was once prone to come and take Christ by force to 
make him a king. As a spiritual potency, however, in- 
wardly operating in the regeneration of the souls of men, 
the power of Christ is unrecognized. What conceivable 
influence can a force that operates internally only in 
the consciences of men have in advancing the civiliza- 
tion and progress of the race ? Is not the laying of a 
single mile of solid railroad track, to this end more con- 
ducive than the conversion of a thousand souls ? In 



190 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the elevation of humanity, was not the discovery of 
electric light more potent than were all the spiritual il- 
luminations of the day of Pentecost ? To the good or- 
der of a city, is not one police station worth more than 
a hundred pulpits? 

Not that Paul for a moment questioned the ultimate 
attainment by humanity of all that material splendor 
and universal sovereignty, within the sphere of the sec- 
ular, by the typical Jew and the modern sensualist an- 
ticipated. He held the sovereignty of the world in 
this respect as already in the possession of faith. 
••The meek shall inherit the earth.'* "All things are 
yours." Neither, indeed, would He exclude, abso- 
lutely, material forces as contributing to this result. 
And yet with Him as underlying and subordinating to 
this end all other forces, was the power of the cross — a 
power of which only the crucified Christ is the source ; 
'•'power of God ;" power of the Holy Ghost ; not ex- 
ternally applied, but by the individual realized first of 
all internally within the sphere of his moral being, bring- 
ing to his soul deliverance from all debasing thralls, 
the enfranchisement of all its powers. "Thy sins be 
forgiven thee," was Christ's first word to the man sick 
of the palsy. What a disappointment to those that 
brought him and were waiting to hear some other word. 
•'•'Why," they say, "this is not that for which we 
brought this man hither. We brought this man hither 
that he might be cured of his palsy, but instead of that, 
only this impotent word, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee. ' 
It is not the sin, it is the suffering we are concerned 
about ; it is not words we want, but deeds, not the 
priest, but the physician." Not long, however, until 
the shrivelled contorted limbs. of the poor paralytic be- 
gan to straighten and to quiver with the vigor of return 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 191 

ing life, and he heard that other word, "Arise, take up 
thy bed and walk." Christs starting point is forgive- 
ness. He goes at once to that which is most funda- 
mental, to the very center of life. He begins with the 
cause rather than with the effect. He deals not simply 
with the misery, but with the secret source whence the 
misery springs. He treats not the symptoms, but the 
disease. He heals from the ground. He takes off, 
first of all, the palsy from the soul. He frees the con- 
science and thus frees the man. Thus, through this 
secret, invisible process, neutralizing the force of in- 
ward depravity, He effectually ameliorates the misery 
it engenders and is to-day multiplying the conditions of 
physical comfort and well-being to an extent unprece- 
dented in the history of mankind. 

Thus would Paul link with the preaching of Christ 
crucified, the highest material prosperity possible to 
man. "You must," he would say, "you must Chris- 
tianize before you can civilize. Before the philanthro- 
pist must go the evangelist. Convert if you would cure, 
regenerate, if you would reform. When there shall be 
no more sin, there shall be no more suffering. Destroy 
the root and the tree will die." With Paul a world 
spiritually dead, is dead in every other respect, polit- 
ically, socially, commercially dead. With him it is the 
spiritual forces at work in the nature of man that is 
most effectually modifying all the conditions of his sec- 
ular life. The highest material prosperity roots itself 
only in a living Christianity. In its vivid apprehen- 
sions of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
man, it lays deep and broad the foundations of every 
civil light and of every social reform. From within, it 
works outwardly, gradually readjusting all human rela- 
tions, harmonizing them, ultimately, with the eternal 



192 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

principles of truth and right. Even the multiplied con- 
ditions of physical comfort and well-being consequent 
upon that advanced civilization of which men of the 
world so much boast, are, in themselves, but the legiti- 
mate result and expression of the unrecognized potent- 
cies of a rejected Christ. It is, though we know it not, 
it is the cross that is lifting up the world. It is on that 
great highway of holiness, built up by the Carpenter's 
Son, that humanity is now traveling up to the heights 
of its pre-destined goal. It is from the summit of Cal- 
vary, only, that men catch glimpses of their destiny. 
Thence also comes to their hearts the inspiration 
through which they work out that destiny. 

The Greek sought after wisdom. Yet was it not in 
any sense a divine wisdom that he sought, but a scin- 
tillation simply of the human reason, the wisdom of 
this world and of the princes of this world that come to 
naught. He, measuring the progress of the race by the 
achievements of the mind, placed the hope of the world 
in mere intellectual activity. With him, education, 
mental culture and training was the only key to the prob- 
lem of the world's fate. And in all this was the Creek 
but a repsesentative man, the representative especially 
of all those, who, in these modern times, having a greater 
respect for the findings of science than for the disclos- 
ures of the Bible, would with the University supplant 
the Church and for the pulpit, substitute the platform 
and the press and deem a cultured intellect, in its bear- 
ings upon the world's progress, of greater importance 
than a regenerated heart and whose perpetual cry is 
"Educate, educate, diffuse intelligence, enlighten the 
masses, teach them the laws of nature, how to master, 
how to apply them and thus lift them up into blessed- 
ness and on in the line of their destiny." 



THE voice out OF THE CLOUD. 19§ 

In opposition however to the wisdom of this world 
in which the Greek so implicitly trusted as the only 
source of blessing to mankind, Paul set, as an element, 
essential to the world's progress the divine wisdom, the 
wisdom of God as displayed in and inspired by the 
cross. Not, then, that Paul would ignore the necessity 
of true wisdom, but only that depraved and selfish sem- 
blance of it as evidently involved in the requirement of 
the Greek. Even to human wisdom, so far as genuine 
and really entitled to be so designated, he certainly 
could not object, but simply to that vain conceit of wis- 
dom the aim of which is show and not improvement — 
that pride of intellect, that exclusive intolerant ration- 
alistic spirit, which fails to recognize, above all, the 
wisdom of God and in its self-sufficiency rejects alike 
the tuitions of His Spirit and the counsels of His Word. 
Over against this spirit, against its pride and self-suf- 
ficiency, Paul sets the wisdom, of which Christ crucified 
is the expression and of which He is, to all that believe, 
the never failing fountain, the inexhaustible supply. 
This haughty intolerant spirit the apostle would teach, 
this one humbling lesson that in the absence of the di- 
vine truth, in the gospel revealed, all other truth, what- 
ever its pretensions, is, in achieving the soul's freedom 
and the destiny to which it is divinely appointed, simply 
powerless ; that the wisdom in the divine method of 
salvation in that gospel unfolded, unrecognized, no other 
is to this end of any avail, that the light which alone can 
lead our bewildered humanity out of the mazes of error 
and of mystery in which it is now wandering, into the 
way of safety and up from the depths of its conscious 
degradation and poverty, to those heights of glory, 
spiritual opulence and renown of which it is capable, 
that that light must emanate, not from any earthly 

13 



1U4 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

source, but from a source supernal, not from the human 
reason, but from the divine, not from Plato, but from 
Christ, not from the Academy, but from the Cross. 

To the Jew and Creek alike, and to those of all 
ages of whom these are the representatives, Paul would 
teach this one great fact, that ail civilization in which 
any real progress is realized, any permanent advantage 
to the race achieved, must root itself, ultimately, in 
the cross, in the power and wisdom of Cod as expressed 
jn, and issuing from Christ crucified. In this way only 
by thoroughly imbuing humanity with these two great 
moral forces, the power and wisdom, the life and the light 
of ( iod. can you lift it up and help it on toward the Mil- 
le.nniuirij, "Build, then, your civilization on what you may, 
whether human force or human intelligence, broaden as 
you will, its base in all directions, lift it into the heavens 
until its gold-gilded dome reflects the light of a thousand 
suns, yet if it rests, not ultimately, on these two great 
underlying principles, the wisdom and power of Cod, 
it is but superficial and delusive and transitory ; a 
structure, beautiful it may be for the time to look at, 
yet, which, as reared on foundations decayed and ever 
decaying ; is at the mercy of all the winds, liable, any 
moment, even while you are looking at it, to tumble 
into ruins. It is only Christian civilization that will 
last, only a civilization based on the morals and per- 
vaded by the spirit of the gospel, and growing out of 
the impulses of a regenerated. humanity that will weather 
the storm. As for the individual, so for the race ; 
there is no real progress that is not in the direction 
of . immortality by the way of the cross. As the cen- 
turies have come and gone, one form of civilization 
after another had appeared and passed away. The 
older forms have mouldered and perished, with only 



THE VOICE 0U2 OF THE CLOUD. 195 

here and there a lone vestige yet lingering, to tell the 
generations following, that they were, and to determine 
their characteristics. But, why so ephemeral, why so 
short-lived? There was something wrong at the base. 
Their foundations were laid in the yielding quicksands, 
on the treacherous shores of the sea of oblivion. The 
waves rolled over them and out of the mighty deluge 
scarcely a wreck remains. The element of perpetuity, 
the purifying element of the gospel was wanting. 

I have faith in the civilization of to-day. Its per- 
petuity is assured by the gospel element that is in it. It 
is a Christian civilization. It is founded on the power 
and wisdom of God. The Man on the cross is its in- 
spiration and its goal. It is the uplifted Christ that is 
uplifting the world. It is a civilization whose roots are 
in Calvary, a civilization springing out of a new r life 
and a new hope, stimulated by the anthems of the pious 
and the supplications of the good, to which every rev- 
erent product of human genius, whether of science or 
of art, is directly tributary, to which every Sabbath- 
school lesson, every gospel sermon, every newly erected 
sanctuary, every consecrated home altar, is but a fresh 
contribution : a civilization of which every hospital, 
every asylum, every board of charity, every magnificent 
gift, in the interest of suffering humanity, whether of 
millionaire or of impecunious widow, is but a sublime 
product of the divinity inspiring it, the monumental 
evidence, of its perpetuity, the certain pledge : a civili- 
zation sustained and guided and carried forward by the 
force of a divine impulsion under the divine auspices 
and in subordination to the divine purposes — a beauti- 
ful structure, supported and upheld, and into symmetry 
developing, through the power and wisdom of God 
Himself, rising heavenward, the crowning glory of all 
the centuries, its proportions stately, its base eternal. 



CHAPTER IX, 



2Ei)c Unotoledgc of a iLibing Iftcticemer tije 
jrmtrrc of Jog to ti)e ISdieber. 

"For I know that my Redeemer liveth.'* — Job xix. 25. 

Redemption is a joy inspiring theme. As repre- 
sented by the angel to the trembling shepherds of Beth- 
lehem it is good tidings of great joy to all people. 
Hence, in these Scriptures we find much said about joy. 
We here read of the joy of the Lord, of the joy of salva- 
tion, of the joy of a good conscience, of the joy of 
faith, of hope, of love, of a joy unspeakable and full of 
glory. And whatever diversity of opinion there may 
be as to the import of the words before us, there can be 
none concerning their spirit. The spirit they breathe 
is evidently the spirit of joy, of triumph, of exultation, 
bordering indeed on ecstasy. In these words we have 
indicated the joy of knowledge, a joy springing from 
knowledge, springing from the knowledge of a living 
Redeemer, even as exhales sweet odors from the beaute- 
ous blossoms, unfolding from the living bud. Joy, in- 
deed, is the one deep and uncontrollable emotion well- 
ing up in every word of the sublime paragraph of which 
the text is but a part. "O, that my words were now 
written: O, that they were printed in a book, that they 
were graven with an iron pen and with lead in the rock 
forever. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and 
that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. 

196 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 19? 

And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet 
in my flesh shall I see God, Whom I shall see for myself 
and mine eyes shall behold and not another, though my 
reins be consumed within me. " 

The knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer lives, 
the source of joy to the believer — this, then, is the 
thought suggested in the text. 

But in order to the completeness of this joy, it is 
requisite that the knowledge of this great fact exists not 
only as a perception of the intellect, but, also, as a 
realization of the heart ; not simply as founded on his- 
torical, but also on experimental evidence. The mere 
intellectual perception of the fact of a living Redeemer, 
is not sufficient. Thousands thus know it, who, at best, 
are conscious only of a mere intellectual pleasure. But, 
it is the essential knowledge, the believing recognition 
of this great fact, the experience of it by the soul, which 
having heard of the Saviour by the hearing of the ear, 
struggles through the darkness of nature's night, until 
it can say now, '-'mine eyes seeth him." that kindles in 
the heart diviner ecstasies of joy. It is only then, when the 
eye of our faith is enabled thus perfect^ to embrace the 
glorious vision of a living Redeemer, that our joy is 
complete. Then, indeed, it becomes essential joy, even 
the joy of salvation, a joy unspeakable and full of 
glory. And, 

First, Such a knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer 
lives, is to the believer the source of joy, as being to 
him the recognition of just such a truth as his soul's 
deepest yearnings demand. 

Truth was originally made for the mind of man and 
the mind of man adapted by God for its reception. 
Hence, the human intellect yearns for truth, even as the 
human body craves its daily food, that is instinctly and 



198 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

by a necessary law of its being. And the absence of 
this yearning indicates a diseased intellect, even as the> 
loathing of its appropriate nourishment indicates a dis- 
tempered body. And, as in the gratification of the 
bodily appetites, so is the gratification of our intellect- 
ual longings, somewhat of pleasureabie emotion is always 
experienced. For how does the healthy soul delight to 
revel in the domain of truth to canvass the entire terri- 
tory in which it is supposed to reside, to banquet on its 
luxuries, to inhale its atmosphere, conscious, seemingly, 
that the more perfectly she disengages herself from the 
entanglements of sense and rises into communion with 
the limitless and the pure, the more perfectly she as- 
serts her inborn dignity and blends in sympathy with 
those lofty intelligences that surround the very fount of 
knowledge, and with visionundimmed and unobstructed, 
gaze upon the luminous pages of the book of life. And, 
i. There is in the soul of man a native affinity for 
whatever of vastness, mystery or novelty there is in the 
universe, so that the recognition of any truth of which 
these are the characteristics, must ever be attended with 
joy. And, herein, perhaps, is the secret of that strange 
power exerted by abstract truth over the mind of its 
votaries, a power swayed by which, the soul, oblivious 
to all practical results and ulterior ends, abandons itself 
to speculations and researches and reasonings profound, 
impatient of all interruption or intrusion from without. 
And, as we see the philosopher or mathematician, ab- 
sorbed in thought until lost to all outward surroundings, 
insensible even to bodily pain the most intense, as was 
sometimes the case with the celebrated Pascal, we, in 
turn, are lost in astonishment at the wonderful facina- 
tion that can thus stimulate the soul in its arduous 
search for truth and sustain unwearied its restless pin- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 199 

on in its subtle wanderings through the regions of a 
cold and limitless abstraction. Indeed, this fascination 
is inexplicable, save on the supposition that the human 
soul finds its appropriate nourishment and a consequent 
special enjoyment in the apprehension of any truth, in 
its nature, vast, mysterious, or new. 

But what truth, let me ask, more eminently distin- 
guished by these characteristics than that of a living 
Redeemer, in all respects and forever a truth incom- 
parable in vastness, without a parallel, in mystery, baf- 
fling all comprehension whether of men or angels, in 
novelty, surpassing all that eye hath seen or ear heard 
or imagination conceived, and in the combination of 
these characteristics, presenting to the human soul an 
object of limitless fascinating power, the only object, 
indeed, commensurate with its most enlarged demands, 
or truly worthy of its profoundest aspirations. And is 
there no joy attendant on the believing apprehension of 
such a truth? Can a soul, yearning for the recognition 
of the vast, the incomprehensible and the new, rest its 
vision for one moment only on such a truth and not be 
fired into ecstasies of delight ? Nay, with the eye of 
my faith fully embracing the glorious vision of a living 
Redeemer, I envy not the philosopher his happiest 
moods, nor the mathematician his profoundest and 
most satisfactory demonstration. I covet not the 
frenzy of the poet, nor the triumph of the artist. M y 
soul is entranced by a sublimer vision, kindled with a 
loftier inspiration. But, 

2. There is in the human- soul an abiding sense of 
need and a consequent perpetual yearning for help. 
Hence, the recognition of any truth involving relief 
for the conscious, wants and felt necessities of our 
nature, must ever be attended with joy. Such, for in- 



200 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

stance, are many of the truths of science, the joy oc- 
casioned by the knowledge of which cannot be attrib- 
uted so much to the essential characteristics of the 
truths themselves, as to the fact that they are of a real 
practical advantage to the world, involving, in an emi- 
nent degree, the happiness of the individual, and the 
welfare of the race. And how exquisite the delight 
occasioned by the first recognition of such truths by 
the mind long struggling to penetrate the dtirkness in 
which they were shrouded, the unwritten history of 
more than one successful experimenter would amply 
testify. Conceive, if you can. of the joy of Sir Isaac 
Xewton, •• when, in his gigantic walks through the fields 
of science, he reached that lofty summit where the 
whole mystery and magnificence of material nature 
stood submitted to his gaze," a joy so intense, they tell 
us. as that he actually broke down in his calculations, 
and was compelled to ask a friend to complete the 
demonstration. How often, indeed, as in the case of 
Christopher Columbus, or Roger Williams, for instance, 
has the conscious recognition of some great practical 
truth of which the world was oblivious, been known to 
stimulate and refresh the soul of its possessor in its 
life long toil, exerting upon it an elevating and refining 
influence, rendering it impervious to the shafts of ridi- 
cule, obloquy and reproach : insensible to poverty and 
pain and bereavement : sustaining it even amid circum- 
stances of trial, which, had it not been so empowered, 
must have overwhelmed and crushed it forever. Bonds 
and imprisonment have ever awaited the advanced think- 
ers of the ages and yet. as in the presence of Sanhe- 
drims and inquisitions, they have stood undaunted and 
undismayed, the strength of their hearts has ever been 
the joy consequent upon their firm grip, upon the great 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 201 

truths, for their devotion to which they were thus bitterly 
assailed. The joy of knowledge, then, though it be 
simply the knowledge of facts connected with, and 
influencing favorably our sublunary existence, is a lofty 
joy, and for the experience of which by every man, God 
has made the most ample provision, by endowing him 
with a nature capable of a constantly progressive de- 
velopment and by placing him in a condition, in which, 
to the inquiring mind, truth after truth burst into view, 
problem after problem is solved, while the soul rushes 
on in the line of its destiny, rejoicing as a strong man 
to run a race. 

If then such is the delight occasioned by the recog- 
nition of mere natural or physical truth, having a direct 
and favorable bearing upon our temporal welfare, how 
shall we conceive of the joy experienced by the believer 
in the recognition of the fact that his Redeemer lives ; 
a fact in its bearings upon human character and human 
destiny, the most profound of any within the compass 
of eternitv. It. is. indeed, the only redemption fact 
of the universe, of all, the most vital, the most compre- 
hensive, involving relief for all our necessities, satis- 
faction for all our yearnings and, which, if properly 
recognized, will consummate our everlasting happiness, 
ultimately lifting our spirits to the skies, associating 
them forever with the angels and with God. Is it any 
wonder, then, that the knowledge of such a fact should 
open i 1 the heart the fountains of joy? Of all discov- 
eries possible to the finite apprehension, that of a living- 
Redeemer is the grandest, the most overwhelming. 
Shall the astronomers rejoice as his eye, sweeping the 
distant heavens, catches the light of some new star 
arid yet no jubilant emotion spring to the heart of him 
whose eye of faith, sweeping the spiritual heavens, 



202 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

catches its first glimpse of the light, the far more blessed 
light of the Star of Bethlehem? "When they saw the 
star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. " We do not 
wonder that strange emotions should gather about the 
heart of him who first discovered the method of ap- 
plying steam for the purpose of locomotion, or elec- 
tricity for the purpose of conveying thought around 
the globe, or at that mighty burst of glad enthusiasm 
with which these discoveries were hailed by the world. 
Why, then, should we wonder at those ecstasies of de- 
light that thrill the soul of the believer, upon the first 
distinct and heartfelt recognition of the fact that his 
Redeemer lives, or at that mighty spontaneous outgushing 
of sympathetic joy with which through all the infinite 
orders of angels, this most wonderful of all discoveries 
is celebrated. We do not wonder, I say, at the self- 
gratulations of that poor man of inventive genius, who, 
after long and patient waiting and earnest seeking in 
the face of all discouragements, has at last achieved suc- 
cess and attained to the discovery of some principle 
hitherto eluding his grasp, but which now in its mani- 
fold bearings and applications, cannot fail favorably to 
affect his whole life, lifting him into higher places of 
independence and power, rendering him superior or at 
least to some extent less liable to the influence of mis- 
fortune and the unnumbered calamities of life. Why, 
then, should we wonder at those transports, all divine, 
kindling the soul of that poor struggling penitent crushed 
and bleeding at the cross, when, at last, after the long 
night of sorrow the day breaks and all at once to his 
trembling faith is revealed, distinctly as in the light of a 
thousand suns, the glorious fact that his Redeemer 
lives. For this fact, properly recognized, is of all, the 
most potent, the most divinely influential-, It is a fear 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 203 

repressing, hope enkindling, life sustaining fact, filling 
the universe with living impulses and the heart of hu- 
manity with unconquerable resolves and through the 
knowledge of which the soul of the believer climbs 
heavenward, ascends into places of independence and 
power, superior to all the adversities incident to its 
sublunary abode. Yea, through the knowledge of this 
truth, I am ready for any fate, prepared for any doom, 
fortified against any vicissitudes, equal to any emer- 
gency, confronting without a tremor the direst assault. 
Put me in chains, yet the freedom of the universe is 
mine. Imprison me close within impenetrable walls, 
my soul is in communion still with far off climes. Sunder 
me, if you will, from all sympathy and companionship of 
men, yet will I sing on in my solitude, unconscious of any 
lonesome hour. Quench the sun in the heavens, still the 
light of this truth will beam on my pathway. Throw 
me into the dungeon, it will make that dungeon a heaven. 
Cast me on the bed of languishing and pain, it will 
make even that "bed feel soft as downy pillows are," 
and the very chamber of death light as the portals of 
glory. Yea, attracted by the light of this truth, my 
soul at last, emerging from amid the waves and woes of 
sin's vast deluge, shall enter unharmed through death's 
mystic maze, into the intenser glories of an eternal day. 

Second. 'The knowledge of the fact of a living Re- 
deemer, is. to the believer, the source of joy as involv- 
ing always and carrying with it the knowledge of many 
other facts in their nature wonderful, and in their bear- 
ings on his welfare most decisive, the knowledge especi- 
ally of that great central fact, the fact of that Redeemer's 
resurrection from the dead and final exaltation to the 
right hand of God. Hence, 

i. The knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer 



204 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

lives is to the believer the source of joy, as carrying with 
it, as of necessity it always does, the conviction, that 
by His gracious interposition on the cross, that Re- 
deemer has rendered to God "a full perfect and suffi- 
cient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of 
the world." For, it is evident, that had not Christ's 
work in this respect been perfect, God never would have 
endorsed it by raising Him up from the dead. He never 
would have affixed His seal of approval to a work in it- 
self incomplete and with which He Himself was not per- 
fectly satisfied. Hence, the coming forth of Christ from 
the dead to life and immortality, was but a sublime 
token of the Father's good pleasure in Him and of His 
entire satisfaction in the great work He accomplished in 
our behalf. It was but a saying to all mankind by the 
Father, "I am perfectly satisfied with all that this My 
Son has done ; with His entire work of mediation and 
I now publicly and in this most impressive manner in 
raising Him from the dead, endorse it all as perfect and 
all-sufficient. This, then, is the joy of the believer, the 
knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer lives, that 
though delivered for our offenses. He was raised again 
for our justification.'' That is, ''the resurrection of 
Christ was the formal acceptance of His sufferings by 
God as the expiation for our sins and, as such, becomes 
the means of inducing and confirming faith in Him as 
our atonement, by which faith we are justified." For, 
certainly, such a sublime endorsement of the all-suffi 
ciency of the merits of the suffering Christ as was given 
by God the Father, in thus raising Him up from the 
dead, must be to the penitent soul, seeking pardon 
through those sufferings, a confirmation of the very 
strongest possible character. For. it is evident, that if 
Christ be not risen, God is not propitiated ; but if God 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 205 

be not propitiated, then are the hopes of Christianity 
vain, and we are yet in our sins. Then neither can we 
exercise faith in what Christ has done for us, for how 
can we put our trust in one who is himself yet under the 
very malediction he came to remove and in whom, and 
in whose work we have no evidence that God Himself 
is satisfied. But this, thank God, is not the state of the 
case. The believer knows that his Redeemer is not 
dead, but that He is living, having been raised up from 
the dead by the glory of the Father. And in this fact, 
he recognizes the source of a perpetual joy, inasmuch 
as it is, to him, the strongest possible evidence that 
Christ's undertaking in his behalf was no failure, but 
rather a grand success and which, as having been thus 
signally approved and accepted of God the Father, now 
stands forth an accomplished fact in the universe, chal- 
lenging to the utmost and to the end of time, the faith 
and hope of the world. " Who, then, thall lay anything 
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. 
Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, 
yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right 
hand of God. " 

The state of the case is simply this : We were 
bankrupt, under arrest to the law of God, in for vastly 
more than we were able to, pay. To pay our debt 
Christ became our surety, went on our note with us. 
When the note was due and we had nothing to pay. 
He simply cancelled it, cancelled it with His own blood. 
" Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was 
against us which was contrary to us and took it out 
of the way on nailing it to His cross." In doing 
this, he died, went down into the grave. Hut he did 
not remain under the power of death, he did not stay 
in the grave. "It was not possible that he should be- 



206 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

holden of it." He rose again. He lives. "Our debt 
is, therefore, paid, because our surety is discharged." 
Men never discharge the surety till the debt is paid, til 
all claims are satisfied. 

2. The knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer 
lives, is to the believer the source of joy, as, carrying 
with it, as of necessity it always does, the conviction of 
the perpetual advocacy of that Redeemer in the court of 
heaven. The life of Christ in heaven, and his inter- 
cessions there, are inseparable as cause and effect. As so 
related are they uniformly represented in the Scriptures. 
•• He everliveth to make intercession for us." "He is 
entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence 
of (iod for us." ''It is Christ that died, yea rather, 
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of 
God. who also maketh intercession for us." Knowing, 
then, as the believer does, that his Redeemer lives, he 
knows that He lives in heaven, -'in the abode of the 
blest, in the home of angels and of Cod :" that He lives 
there as his Advocate, as the Advocate of all our race. 
The one involves the other. To know Christ as a liv- 
ing Redeemer, is to know Him, also, as an interceding 
Redeemer. When vast interests are at stake, it is a joy 
to know that the management of them is in competent 
hands. Hence, to know that his Redeemer lives, that 
He lives as his representative at the court of heaven, as 
his Advocate, in his nature and in his name, exercising 
there in his behalf, perpetually, all high-priestly offices 
and sacerdotal functions, cannot but fill the soul of the 
believer with an inconceivable joy. 

3. The knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer 
lives, is to the believer the source of joy, as carrying 
with it, as it always does, the conviction that in that 
Redeemer he has a great and infallible teacher, one 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 207 

who will guide him with his counsel and afterward re- 
ceive him to glory. There be many who set themselves 
up to be teachers, guides to our consciences, teaching 
all sorts of things, teaching for doctrines the command- 
ments of men. No wonder we are sometimes bewil- 
dered. Christ, however, is an authoritative teacher, 
emphatically- "a teacher come from God. " To the be- 
liever, then, it is certainly a source of unspeakable joy 
to know that in his journey heavenward, he is guided 
by no false or nattering lights, but is, at every step of 
the way, under the direct and immediate tuition and 
leadership of that great and infallible teacher, who of 
himself has said, " I am the light of the world, he that 
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have 
the light of life." 

4. The knowledge of the fact that his Redeemer 
lives, is to the believer the source of joy as carrying 
with it, as it always does, the conviction of that Re- 
deemer's unlimited authority and power, by which he 
governs his people for his own glory and the universe 
for their good. In the ever-living and highly exalted 
Christ, there is a perpetual exercise in the interests of 
our humanity, not only of the priestly and prophetical 
offices but, also, of the kingly. If then our Re- 
deemer lives, he lives as our King. Pavilioned in 
regal splendor, he is now forever set down at the right 
hand of God from henceforth, expecting, till his ene- 
mies be made his footstool. Enthroned in the supreme 
glory of heaven, he lives to control the affairs of his 
kingdom to baffle and to confound the transgressors, to 
comfort and to glorify all believers. "And the gov- 
arnment shall be upon his shoulder." "For to this end 
Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might 
be the Lord both of the living and of the dead." To 



208 THE VOICE OVl OF THE CLOUD. 

know Christ, then, as a living Redeemer, is to know 
him. also, as a reigning Redeemer. His reign is univer- 
sal, over the animate, as over the inanimate, over men 
and angels and devils. In man's behalf, especially, 
does he interpose his kingly power and more especially 
still, in behalf of those that fear his name, who com- 
pose what is styled, emphatically, '•The kingdom of 
Christ." ; 'For he hath put all things under his feet 
and gave him to be the head over all things to the 
church. " 

The knowledge, then, of the fact that his Redeemer 
lives, is to the believer the source of joy, as keeping up 
in his mind a constant sense of that all controlling power 
by which all his foes are overcome. To the believer it 
is a joy to know that somebody is looking after this 
world, that is able to take care of it, that, notwithstand- 
ing the many evils incident to the selfishness and short- 
sightedness of those who claim to be managing its af- 
fairs, the reins of government are not lying loosely on 
the neck of untamed impulse and passion, but are 
tightly held in the hand of Him who sitteth on the 
throne, guiding with His eye where human wisdom 
gropes only in the dark. As such, this knowledge is to 
the believer the constant pledge that to him shall be 
given strength and safety under all circumstances: the 
pledge that all events, the adversities of life as well as its 
prosperities, shall work together for his good, "just as 
all seasons of the year, the nipping frosts of Winter, as 
well as the halcyon days of Summer, conspire and con- 
duce to the harvest." Above all and over all his living 
Redeemer presides. And, knowing this, the believer 
cheerfully surrenders all into His hands, and as events 
thicken around him and the darkness deepens, threat- 
ening disaster to his hopes and the overthrow of order 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 20& 

in the world, he wavers not, but all unconscious of any dis- 
quieting fear, confidently exclaims, "I know whom I 
have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep 
that which I have committed unto Him against that 
day. " The world may go wrong and I may be wronged, 
but this one thing I do know, that just as certainly as 
my Redeemer lives and in yonder heaven sits enthroned, 
just so certainly shall the right live and triumph, finally, 
over all this wrong. 

How strong the consolation then derived from the 
knowledge of the fact that our Redeemer lives, in the 
day of temptation and trial, when in the disheartening 
hour, struggling against misfortunes swelling and still 
on sweeping tide and our faith and spirt's nerve are 
tested to theirutmost tension, how consoling thethought 
that we are not alone in the struggle, that there lives in 
heaven One 

Whose heart is made of tenderness, 
Whose bowels melt with love. 

One who can be " touched with the feeling of our 
infirmities," "One who knows what sore temptations 
mean, for He has felt the same," One who knows 
precisely how much of grief our frail hearts can bear 
and who, remembering our frame, that it is dust, will, 
in each of life's sorrowful moments, lay his hand upon 
the beating billow, saying "Hitherto shalt thou come, 
but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be 
stayed." 

And just here as an illustration of the strength de- 
rived from the knowledge of the fact of a living Re- 
deemer and of its power to bear up the soul amid 
calamities unnumbered and dire and to render it over 
all the ills of life victorious, permit me to introduce to 
your contemplations the eventful history of the vener- 

14 



210 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

able Patriarch, the author of our text, which is indeed 
familiar to you all. Not by any means as a mere, ideal 
representation of the poet, but as a real actual person- 
age as a man of wealth and distinction, an eminent cit- 
izen of the land of Uz, as a philosopher, walking the 
highest plane of cotemporary thought, as the greatest 
indeed of all the men of the East he stands delineated 
on the inspired page, in the exhibition of a virtue the 
most unprecedented and sublime, reflecting honor upon 
the remotest antiquity. The untarnished splendor of 
his character, the unwavering fidelity of his spirit, 
equally firm in its trust in prosperity and in adversity, 
are circumstances of his history which admit neither of 
exaggeration nor embellishment, while any enlarge- 
ment upon them in the way of comment is rendered 
unnecessary by the fact that the whole world hath 
heard of the patience of Job, and "Hath seen the end 
of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender 
mercy. " 

But, contemplating him, more especially, as giving 
vent to his feelings in the words of the text, his condi- 
tion is such as is most eminently calculated to engaged 
our attention and to elicit our sympathy. The storm 
of affliction has gone over him. From the heights of 
prosperity to the depth of adversity had he suddenly 
descended. By permission of God, and at the com- 
mand of Satan, had gone forth the conspiring elements, 
fire, and sword and tempest, bereaving him of his chil- 
dren, his servants and his possessions. In almost 
breathless succession, treading on the heels of each 
other, came the messengers, bringing to his ears the 
doleful tidings of his misfortunes. Now, by the merci- 
less sword of the treacherous Sabean his servants are 
slain ; now fire out of heaven descends and his flocks 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 211 

are scattered and consumed ; now forth issuing out of 
the desert, sweeps the whirlwind, and in the ruins of 
their dwelling his children are overwhelmed and de- 
stroyed. And still the storm gathers and the darkness 
deepens into an intenser gloom. Midnight reigns. The 
hand of Satan is on his person. Disease tortures him 
from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The 
balm of friendship is denied him, and all its sweetness, 
in his case, turned to gall." " Whoever perished, be- 
ing innocent?" was the bitter taunt that, from the lips 
of those who came to comfort him, saluted his ears — 
cold comfort, implying, as it did, their dark suspicion 
that he had been guilty of some secret sin, of which his 
unparalled afflictions were but a just punishment from 
God. While, even the wife of his bosom thoughtlessly 
adds to his grief, impatiently entreating him to curse 
God and die. Hence, in the preceding part of this 
chapter, he enters into an affecting enumeration of his 
wrongs and woes, and closes the sad rehearsal by crav- 
ing the pity and forebearance of his friends. "Have 
pity upon me, have pity upon me. O ye, my friends, 
for the hand of God hath touched me. Why do ye 
persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my 
flesh ?" The shadow of a darker hour, methinks, never 
fell on the history of mortal man. " Behold," he says, 
" I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, 
but there is no judgment. He hath fenced up my way 
that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my 
paths. He hath stripped me of my glory and taken the 
crown from my head. He hath destroyed me on every 
side and I am gone. " His children and his servants, 
his health and his possessions had all been wrested from 
him. His kinsfolk had failed him, his familiar friends 
had forgotten him, his servants treated him with con- 



fcl2 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

tempt, little children despised him, and even they whom 
he loved, were turned against him. < 'Surely," yielding 
to the tempter, he might have said, 11 surely, I have no 
Redeemer, or if I have, he must be dead." But, lo, 
suddenly all is changed. Instantaneously the clouds 
break away, the sky brightens, the heavens shine with 
an uncommon luster. The day breaks, the morning 
dawns. Light, intense as the glory of God, bursts into 
his soul, and in his eyes kindles with the old prophetic 
fire. With one mighty glance transcending all merely tem- 
poral good, he pierces the vail of outward things, pene- 
trating the far-distant future, now to his faith, with all 
it contains, a present reality, penetrating to the recog- 
nition even of his then living Redeemer, as in the last 
day he shall stand upon the earth, the Restorer of his 
soul's heritage, the Vindicator of its rights and the 
Avenger of its wrongs, and, breaking out into the most 
exalted and triumphant strains, he exclaims, £< O, that 
my words were now written; O, that they were printed 
in a book, that they were graven with an iron pen and 
lead in the rock forever, for I know that my Redeemer 
liveth." " I thought he was dead ; they told me he was 
dead, and in the stupor of my deep sorrow, I almost 
believed them ; but now I know, I feel he lives and vin- 
dicates my righteous cause." 

How strong the consolation derived from the knowl- 
edge of the fact that our Redeemer lives when in the 
hour and agony of death. We all admire the friendship 
that is simply unconditional, that can be counted on in 
all weathers. And yet, despite the many noble exam- 
ples to the contrary, earthly friends do often fail us 
just when we need them most. Indeed it is well worth 
while sometimes to get into trouble, just to see them 
scatter. While our vessel rides out on a smooth sea 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 213 

with a prosperous gale, they will be the companions of 
our voyage. But when the wing of the tempest is on 
the ocean, sun and stars obscured and all hope that we 
shall be saved taken away, they will desert our founder- 
ing bark for brighter suns and calmer seas. Not so, 
however, with our living Redeemer. He is the friend 
" that loveth at all times, the brother born for adver- 
sity." The more violent the tempest, the more sensi- 
ble his presence. But O, in the solemn death hour, 
how divinely near, how unspeakably precious. 

Naturally we think of the end of our life's weary pil- 
grimage and wonder whether for the soul there be any 
companionship in its passage through the dark valley. 
But, as I contemplate this subject, my mind labors to 
embody its reflections in some appropriate imagery. A 
vast country opens up before me, a limitless expanse 
over whose otherwise dark surface extends a lane-like 
vista, crowded with our multitudinous humanity, seem- 
ingly intent on some mighty pilgrimage. My eye glanc- 
ing far down this vista, beholds standing at its farthest 
extremity and before a huge iron gate, a man whose 
name, they say, is " Christian." This gate over which 
I see written in sombre characters, " Death," opens 
into a vast field of graves, surrounded by a wall impene- 
trable and high and gloomy as the walls of the sepul- 
cher, while yonder, just on the other side of this ex- 
tended field of graves, I see the borders of that beauti- 
ful land, the inhabitants of which never weep and never 
die. But, before he can enter that beautiful land the 
Christian must, in compliance with an irreversible de- 
cree, pass through this gloomy gate. But now, as the 
Christian stands tremblingly confronting his conscious 
doom, dreading the unknown mysterious venture, I see 
approaching him a Personage of noble bearing. There 



214 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

is majesty in His mien, there is compassion in His eye. 
In His hands He bears a ponderous key and on His 
brow the seal of divinity. And as He nears the tremb- 
ling Christian, He places His right hand upon His head 
saying, " Fear not, .1 am the first and the last ; I am He 
that liveth and was dead; and behold I am alive for- 
evermore ; and have the keys of hell and of death." 
And now, in advance of the Christian, He approaches 
the huge iron gate. Yielding to His power, it opens for 
His admission. He enters in through the gate and turn- 
ing, takes his position within, hard on the verge of an 
open and newly dug grave and, smiling, bids the Chris- 
tian follow. Lured by that encouraging smile, the 
Christian does follow and as unfalteringly he descends 
to that gloomy gate, I hear Him say, " I will fear no 
evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff, they 
comfort me. " One step, the last of a weary pilgrimage, 
and he has passed the gloomy gate and having passed, 
his body drops at once into the open and newly dug 
grave, but his spirit, all immortal and all unharmed by 
the transition, is caught up into the arms of its living 
Redeemer and is wafted in triumph over that field of 
death and of graves, into the fields of glory and bless- 
edness beyond where, with angels and with God, it 
dwells in light and joy forever. 

And is this all? No, no. For hope still hovering 
around that open and newly dug grave, would seek in 
the knowledge of a living Redeemer, some balm for its 
bleeding heart, some strength for its drooping pinion. 
And, thank God, it shall not seek in vain. For the 
resurrection of all the dead, is, in this sacred volume, 
linked by way of consequence with the resurrection of 
Christ. His life is the life of all. "I am," says 
Christ, "the resurrection and the life. Because I live 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 215 

ye shall live also. Now is Christ risen from the dead, 
and become the first fruits of them that slept. But 
every man in his own order ; Christ, the first fruit, af- 
terward, they that are Christ's at his coming." The 
first fruits gathered, the garnering of the whole harvest 
must follow. Go on, then, O death, with thy work. 
Thou hast a little time left thee. Whet thy scythe and 
cut world-wide thy swath. Cut it clean. Go forth in 
war, go forth in pestilence, go forth in cyclone and in 
fire. Turn, if thou wilt, this world of ours into one 
vast cemetery, one vast field of graves. Go oh. But 
remember that there is One that lives, thine ancient 
conqueror, Who, erst on Calvary, extracted thy venom- 
ous sting and broke thy cruel power. He lives, my 
Redeemer lives, humanity's Redeemer, the undying 
Avenger of its wrongs, the Vindicator of its rights. He 
shall stand at the latter day, upon the earth. His voice, 
fraught with resurrection power, shall penetrate each 
grave thou hast filled. Then shall thy work be undone, 
thy desolations repaired. Then, shall I, and all thy now 
helpless millions, responding to His voice, spring forth 
from the dust, and in robes immortal, re-habilitated, 
open our wondering eyes to see God, Whom in our 
flesh, we shall see for ourselves, and our eyes shall be- 
hold, and not another. Then shall be brought to pass 
the saying that is written, ''Death is swallowed up in 
victory. " 



CHAPTER X. 



Paul, fyz JHtesionarg, 

"I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians ; both 
to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am ready to 
preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also." — Rom. i. 14, 15. 

The great diversity of sentiment, and of disposition 
with which different individuals have contemplated their 
alliance with the race, is evident to all. And it is certainly 
no small privilege to be permitted to understand the 
views and feelings with which men of elevated charac- 
ter have regarded their relations to society and to know 
the manner in which they were affected toward the great 
family of man, of which they themselves were active 
and influential members. This privilege, so far as re- 
lating to the Apostle Paul, is furnished us in the words 
before us. Herein are unveiled the soul and the sym- 
pathy of one of earth's noblest sons, of one whose en- 
tire Christian character was but the unfolding and the 
exhibition of the great principles they embody. 

And as to the character thus unfolded, it embodies 
too much of moral sublimity, ever to have existed inde- 
pendently of Christianity. Such a character could not 
have originated under the influences of mere natural re- 
ligion. It does not fall within the provinces of any 
human philosophy, thus to elevate the soul into a dis- 
tinct apprehension of the obligation under which it is 
placed, or to inspire it with strength sufficient for ear- 
nest and successful endeavors to meet the responsibilities 

216 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 217 

by those obligations imposed. While equally powerless, 
in this respect, were the influences of mere Judaism. 
They could, indeed, produce a Saul of Tarsus, the ac- 
complished functionary of a jealous priesthood, the 
proud, boasting, intolerant Pharisee, but not Paul, the 
Apostle ; Paul, the missionary, the humble, devoted, 
self-sacrificing herald of the cross. It was Christianity, 
and it alone, that inspired the sentiment and infused 
the spirit breathing in the words, "I am debtor both to 
the Greeks, and to the Barbarians ; both to the wise 
and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am ready to 
preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also." 

The missionary sentiment, "I am debtor the mis- 
sionary spirit, "I am ready." 

It is however, chiefly, with the lofty sentiment of these 
words, that I now propose awhile to linger, which is 
simply that of afar-reaching obligation to subserve in 
all possible ways, and to the utmost of the ability God 
has given, the welfare of all men. This is the one 
grand missionary sentiment, the apostle controlling, 
and by him distinctly recognized in the declaration, 
I am debtor. " And just in proportion as the Christian 
element diffuses itself in the soul of man, will this sen- 
timent become prevalent therein, just in that propor- 
tion will the obligation, binding the individual to con- 
tribute to the utmost of his ability, to the welfare of 
his fellow-men be distinctly apprehended by the heart 
and nobly expressed in the life. There is a sense in 
which all exists for the individual, and yet another, in 
which the individual exists for all. It is not, however, 
of the obligations of the many to the one, but of the 
one to the many, that we now speak. And to show 
that such obligations do exist and the circumstances 
under which they exist, to show that they are neither 



218 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

visionary, self-imposed, nor incidental, but in some de- 
gree identified with every condition of humanity, aris- 
ing, as they do, out of relations inseparable from our 
being, is the primary object proposed in this discourse. 

Leaving every other consideration entirely out of 
view, and contemplating man simply in his natural re- 
lations, as a part of the creation of God, as one of the 
atoms of the universe, the existence of obligations bind- 
ing the individual to a contribution of some sort to the 
general good, would seem inevitable. 

For, first, the denial of these obligations would be 
in direct contradiction to what we know of the consti- 
tution of nature in general, in which it has been so ar- 
ranged by God, as that every individual is designed to 
be tributary to the good of others, to the harmony and 
well-being of the entire system to which he belongs, 
and also to the great ends on which that system in the 
aggregate is intended to subserve. For, as on the one 
hand, there is in nature no deficiency, so on the other, 
there is nothing superfluous — no stint — no excess. It 
would destroy her symmetry. It would mar her fair 
proportions. Hence, while all material things, rising 
as by a profound, unvarying instinct, into their appro- 
priate relations, form one of the grand majestic pillars in 
nature's temple, the immaterial, and spiritual, constitute 
the other, in which every thinking, intelligent being has 
a position allotted it by the infinite Architect, the Maker 
of all. 

Now, whether related to the material or to the imma- 
terial, in this great temple, every individual has a certain 
duty to perform. The nature of this duty, it is true, must 
vary according to that of the being to which it belongs. 
The atom and the angel are alike, the servants of Jeho- 
vah, and tributary to his designs, the oneunconsciously, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 219 ' 

the other consciously so, yet their respective duties are 
such as are appropriate only to the nature and relative 
position of each. But, especially, would a thinking, 
intelligent being, without a duty to perform, be in nature 
an excrescence from which she would shrink, as from 
an indelible disgrace. It would be amid her temple 
harmonies, an element of perpetual discord existing in 
defiance of that law of service stamped on all that God 
has made. It would be an anomaly in the world of 
mind, an incongruity, defeaturing and deforming the 
universe. Such a being would belong to a different 
constitution of things, for under the present, its exist- 
ence would be impossible. 

As, then, duty waits on all that wake to being under 
the present order of things, the only question is con- 
cerning its character whether relative or otherwise that 
is, whether the duties of the separate beings existing in 
nature's temple, are simply personal, relating to them- 
selves alone, or also reciprocal, relating to each other, 
and, as such, subordinated to the beauty and efficiency 
of the entire superstructure and the ultimate designs of 
its beneficent Author. 

But to the solution of this question a myriad anal- 
ogies lend their aid. The impartation of somewhat of 
the individual life for the good of others, has its type 
in all things. The ideal of nature is that of a living 
temple, a sublimely organized result, from every indi- 
vidual or separate part of which there is a contribution 
to the aggregate life, but for which contribution, the in- 
dividual is, in turn, fully compensated in the perfection 
of his own being. Hence there is an interdependency 
of being and a " mutual giving and receiving of alter- 
nate and perpetual currents of good," inseparable from 
that interdependency observable in all nature. This law 



220 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

of reciprocity is universal. Isolated being is an impos- 
sibility. God Himself never so existed. From all 
eternity there have been three. Nothing is complete in 
itself. Dissolve the elements and they cease to be. De- 
stroy the relations of the universe and it passes away. Its 
strength and glory are in what one calls "the army fel- 
lowship and co-working," of its myriad particles. Its 
music is but the sighing of atoms for their affinities. All 
things in nature are dependent, and in their mutual de- 
pendence mutually sympathize and fraternally supple- 
ment each other's frailty. The zephyr, kissing and woo- 
ing the blossom, thus helping it to unfold, returns bur- 
dened with compensating fragrance. The sunbeam, 
painting the flower, and transforming the dew into 
pearls, is, in turn, enriched with images of beauty. This 
law of interdependency is illustrated everywhere in the 
suns that burn, and in the stars that glow, in the ambi- 
ent air, and sky-embosomed cloud, in processes of na- 
ture silent, subtle and mysterious, in all embracing 
sympathies and reciprocal influences, giving to earth's 
multitudinous being form, and beauty, and to its varied 
activities unity and power. 

All nature unperverted proclaims herself a debtor. 
Her all prevalent impulse in what direction soever from 
her beneficent heart going out, is in perpetual subordin- 
ation to the great law of mutual helpfulness. Take 
what you will of her, and you will find it working for 
another's good and altogether for God. In all her 
harmonies, from the faint to the fearful, in the murmur 
of her brooks, in the anthems of her oceans, in the 
songs of her birds, in the tones of her thunder, from 
field and forest, from mountain and plain, from lofty 
steep and lowly vale, from laughing rivulet and shelter- 
ing bower, yea, from all the vast and varied surface of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 221 

creation, there rolls up to heaven in grandest unity, this 
one simultaneous voice, a reproof eternal in the ear of 
selfishness : " None of us liveth to himself but for an- 
other." 

The obligations of which we speak, may be re- 
garded as arising, more directly, out of the constitution 
of human nature, in particular in which the relation 
of the individual to the race is such, as that to be a 
man, is to be a debtor to humanity. 

A community in any privilege always implies a cor- 
responding obligation on the part of every one partici- 
pating in it, to preserve that privilege in its integrity, 
uncorrupted and unimpaired. Thus a community of 
nature, always implies a corresponding obligation on 
the part of each, and of all, partaking thereof, to exalt, 
ennoble, and dignify that nature according as its neces- 
sities, may require. Thus considered, the obligations 
to mutual care and helpfulness of which we speak, rest 
on the basis of a common nature and he that would feel 
the force of them, must not regard mankind as constituted 
simply of so many separate and independent beings, 
having no relation to each other more intimate than 
that existing between the grains of sand on the sea shore, 
but as a vitally organized result, as the growth of a 
single germ, as the unfolding of a common life. "To 
the superficial observer, all things seem isolated and 
detached. In mankind, in the nation, in the family 
even, he sees nothing but individuals, whose action are 
altogether distinct." He penetrates not to that inward 
principle of unity which radiates from the center, invis- 
ibly linking every individual of our race to every other. 
And it is just here, that men are likely to fail in their 
estimate of the responsibilities of life. They do not 
ever bear in mind this one great and underlying fact, 



222 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

that, every individual takes his position in life, not sol- 
itary and isolated, but as connected with all that ever 
were before him, and with all that are to come after 
him not accidentally or contingently, but actually and 
.really by a mighty mysterious bond which, extending 
back to the first man that beheld the rising morn, com- 
prehends each of the myriads now existing and reach- 
ing forward to the last man as he shall stand upon a 
dissolving world and gaze upon a fading, flickering, 
dying sun, binds all together in one vast brotherhood, 
in one absolute, vital unity. 

Neither, indeed, is this bond of unity a mere ab- 
straction, a mere line encircling the earth for the sake 
of convenience. It is not ideal, but actual, not chimer- 
ical or arbitrary, but an intrinsic, objective reality, 
something underlying all the personal forms and vary- 
ing features of our humanity from age to age, controll- 
ing the development of our species ; binding the indi- 
viduals of the race to that primitive type so invariably 
reproducing itself in each successive generation. This 
bond of unity, then, is what we call human nature. It 
is our common humanity, the hereditary bond of our 
brotherhood, on the broad basis of which the inhabit- 
ant of one hemisphere may stand and lovingly grasp 
the hand of him that dwelleth in the other, saying, 
4 'let there, I pray thee, be no strife between me and 
thee, between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be 
brethren." Human nature, then, is something in which 
all are partakers, yet exclusively possessed by none. 
It is a patrimony of which all are inheritors, hence all 
are concerned for its honor and mutually under obli- 
gations to contribute to its elevation. 

The fact that all are partakers of a common nature, 
a common humanity, is indeed by some practically de- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 223 

nied. They deem themselves exceptions to the general 
law and their existence the result of a special dispensa- 
tion of heaven. Separated groups, isolated individual- 
ities, they exist in the mass, yet isolated and distinct, 
claiming a separate origin, and a separate mold. They 
have a nature of their own and know no kin. They are 
separate and independent links, wrought of gold or 
other precious material, and scorn to be incorporated 
into the old, rusty chain of ordinary being. And, in 
the language of the first murderer they respond to the 
voices rebuking their forced and guilty exclusiveness : 
" Am I my brother's keeper ?" 

But the folly of all this is evident. It is not just so 
easy to step out of the ranks. For, here, as I stand 
and cast my eyes over life's changing and yet ever re- 
curring scenes I find that how vast soever the variety 
in other things, that how various soever the grades of 
human intellect, worldly rank, or temporal fortune, that 
how diversified soever the constitutions, tempers or 
situations in life, here, at least, is universal uniformity, 
here is a truth that admits of no variety and of no 
evasion, we all have one common nature, one common 
humanity. 

When I contemplate the problem of life and the cir- 
cumstances connected with the beginnings of human 
existence, when I think of the feebleness of infancy, and 
of our dependence through all our childhood's object- 
less years, wherein we, like the fragile flower, are liable 
to be nipped by the untimely frost, or rudely sundered 
from the parent stock by the untimely blast, the truth 
comes home to my heart that as these circumstances 
are common to all our race, we all have one common 
nature, one common humanity. 

Again, I behold all are to a great extent subject to 



224 THE VOICE OUT 'OF THE CLOUD. 

the same vicissitudes of inward experience, the same 
alternating of light and shade. To-day the smile of 
contentment lingers lovingly, where to-morrow all is 
shrouded in gloom. To visionary hope and self-esteem, 
quickly succeed dispondency, self-loathing, and disgust, 
to fancied security, and seeming bliss the tocsin of alarm 
and the bitings of remorse. And as I behold these 
things, I am more than ever convinced that we all have 
one common nature, one common humanity. 

Again, I see hoary headed age, tottering along on 
time's crumbling verge, grasping with palsied hands 
each faint and shadowy hope that life presents, as a 
rescue from the deep dark chasm below. But he abideth 
not, nor continueth in one stay. And as beneath ob- 
livion's wave he sinks away, I again most deeply feel 
that we all have one common nature, one common hu- 
manity. 

And, finally, as I watch the issues of life and behold 
the goings out of the lamp of human existence; as I fol- 
low my fellow men into the deepening death-shade and 
witness there, the agonies of dissolution, the rending of 
the last frail, sublunary tie, the strugglings, the gasp- 
ings, the shrinkings of instinct, in the jaws of unyield- 
ing destiny and especially as I follow that which was 
once all noble and life-like, to that lone mansion where 
brooding silence fosters decay, and in its history read 
the doom of all, " Dust thou art and unto dust thou 
shall return," again, with reverence, I bow at the shrine 
of truth and, in deep humility, record the fact : we all 
have one common nature, one common humanity. 

If but read aright, the history of one is the history 
of all. All are subject to the same emotions, the same 
hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows, having the 
same origin and tending to the same destination. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 225 

Hence, I conclude, that, where there is such a com- 
munity of nature, there must also be a community of 
obligation. So that the natural indebtedness of each 
to his race, is so far from being a mere ideal thing, or 
creature of the fancy, that it is identified with our very 
being and cannot be separated from it. It is entailed 
in the very nature we inherit. It is nature's great and 
universal law, stamped by the hand of God, upon our 
common humanity, and from the bearings of which of- 
fended selfishness, struggles in vain to free itself ; a law 
under which we come into the world, and from the re- 
quirements of which, we can never be released, until 
humanity shall have passed within those gates, where 
all earthly relations are sundered, and our nature forever 
perfected in a state, where moral want and physical des- 
titution are alike unknown, a law from the exactions of 
which even the humanity of our Lord was not exempted; 
" For He came not to be ministered unto, but to minis- 
ter and to give His life, a ransom for many;" a law, 
voicing itself in the sublimest sympathies of the indi- 
vidual heart, uttered in the feeling of commiseration 
awakened within our bosom, as ever and anon, some 
suffering representative of our species crosses our path- 
way. Heard you not its voice, as that poor blind beg- 
gar, exposed to the wintery blast, or the sweltering ray, 
stood at your threshold, or, on the highway confronted 
you, and in all the eloquence of silent woe, craved that 
simple recognition his mortal misery required ? Heard 
you not its silent pleadings, as perchance, in childhood's 
susceptible hours, you listened, as they were wont to 
tell you the story of the poor heathen's woe, as they 
told you of cannibal fires and their attendant orgies, of 
the car of death and its bloody trail, of flames purging 
away the disgrace of widowhood, of altars on which 

15 



226 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the blinded devotee immolates his innocent offspring, 
of the wailings of infancy, mingling with the low mur- 
murs of the Ganges, then heard you not its voice while 
inward yearnings and the starting tear, betokened its 
divinity and the more than common power with which 
it stirred your soul and riveted your attention, while 
it told you that circumstances, which so powerfully 
affect your own nature, ought also to affect your own 
heart and prompt you to that nature's rescue? 

Thus, the claims of our nature in the aggregate, are 
not without a vindication in the individual heart. In 
every human heart there is a tongue which endorses 
these claims and in a voice of thunder demands that 
they be respected. "The feeling of commiseration 
has been ordained by a God of mercy, to teach us a 
lesson of mercy and lead us to mitigate the manifold 
miseries of man's estate." 

Here, then, just here on this broad and permanent 
basis I might take my stand, to plead the cause of suf- 
fering humanity against all its oppressors, and, espe- 
cially, to vindicate against the encroachments of selfish- 
ness its claims upon the generous efforts and tender 
assiduities of the individuals representing it. In order 
to awaken your sympathies and concentrate your en- 
deavors in the common behalf, I might here appeal to 
all that is noblest in your being to that fraternal bond 
that sacred link of kinship which evinced in mightiest 
yearnings of the soul bespeaks humanity's primal unity 
and its claim to mutual love. I might tell you how, 
that by virtue of your participation in a common nature, 
you are under obligations, as far as in you lies, to exalt, 
ennoble, and dignify that nature. To this, indeed, you 
are prompted by the sleepless instinct of self-preserva- 
tion. For, remember, that to exalt that nature, is to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 227 

exalt yourself. As through your personal endeavors, that 
nature ascends, you ascend with it. For, as already 
intimated, wherever you behold a human being, whether 
amid 

"Greenland's icy mountains, 
Or India's coral strand," 

whether amid the bleak storms of the north, or the 
burning suns of the south, whether the poor Indian 
whose "untutored mind sees God in clouds or hears 
him in the wind," or the dark-hued African, groaning 
in ignorance and beneath the weight of superstitious 
fears, whether a cowering slave or lordly prince, there 
you behold your own nature. "For God hath made of one 
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of 
the earth." Therefore draw out thy soul to the hungry, 
and satisfy the afflicted soul, and hide not thy self from 
thine own flesh, for every benefit conferred on it, is a 
benefit conferred on thyself not directly, it may be, on 
thine own person, but on thine own nature. And what, 
I ask, is mere personal gratification compared with the 
honor, dignity, and nobility of our common nature? 
Nay, but let our common nature be exalted to those 
heights for which God has destined it, though every 
merely personal hope should perish amid the splendors 
of its superiority. I mean to say that we should lose 
sight of what is to us a merely personal and incidental 
good, in our devotion to what is to our nature perma- 
nent, and universal, willing even to make a sacrifice of 
all merely transitory enjoyment, likes and dislikes, 
when conflicting with another's higher and more essen- 
tial welfare, that is when the glory of our common hu- 
manity demands it. He is yet very for short of the 
Apostle's sense of indebtedness to humanity, who is not 
ready to sacrifice his fortune, to save a life, and his life, 



228 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

to save a soul. ''He who lives for himself alone, livds 
for a mean fellow. " 

True, the self-surrender thus insisted upon, may, in 
the estimation of many, be held to be an unreasonable 
exaction, altogether impracticable and visionary. To 
the narrow, pinched up spirit of a selfishness, the sub- 
lime ethics, inculcating the surrender of what is to us, 
merely personal and incidental, in the interests of what 
is to humanity, permanent and universal, is always vis- 
ionary. And yet, herein, let me say, is the secret of 
all true greatness, the very soul of a life heroic, the 
germ of all noble deeds. Whether a great character, 
or a great achievement, underlying, is always the spirit 
of sacrifice, the sentiment of the text ; "I am debtor. " 
What result has been honored with the most lasting dis- 
tinction, and fraught with the most abundant blessing 
to the world, has been achieved, only at the sacrifice of 
earth's dearest, personal hopes. In this, consists the 
glory of all martyrdom, whether for God or country, 
whether at the stake, or on the battlefield. In this, con- 
sists the glory of all Christian philanthropy. The yield- 
ing up of self and of all selfish desire, on love's high altar, 
perpetual sacrifice for humanity's good, has rendered im- 
mortal, though, thank God, not inimitable, the Paul's, the 
Howards, and the Judsons of the race. In this, con- 
sists the splendor and the power of the cross of Christ, 
who, says the apostle, "being in the form of God, 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made 
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form 
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and 
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself 
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross." But why was the Son of God, thus impover- 
ished and humiliated ; why this illustrious condescen- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 229- 

sioh, this stupendous sacrifice of personal glory ; why 
this coming down from the infinite heights ; this pass- 
ing through the low vale of human sorrow ? Was it 
not that He might, in passing, lay hold upon our de- 
based and ruined nature, and in His going up again, 
bear that nature with Him to those heights of glory 
whence He came ? Yes, Christ became a man, that 
He might become a debtor to humanity, that through 
His sufferings and personal humiliation, as such, He 
might lift humanity up, restore it to its primal dig- 
nity, its native home. And lift it up, He did. How 
high, the apostle tells us in the very next verse, where 
we read of that nature's exaltation, in the person of 
Christ, to the honors of universal dominion; ' 'Where- 
fore, God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a 
name which is above every name, that at the name of 
Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
things in earth, and things under the earth, and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father." Here, then, in the 
person of Christ, our nature first rolled off the mantle 
of its shame, and putting on the robes of state, mounted 
the victor's chariot and led even the monster death in 
chains : 

"Shout, earth and heaven, 
This sum of good to man, whose nature then 
Took wing and mounted with Him from the tomb ; 
Then, then I rose, then first humanity 
Triumphant passed the crystal ports of light, 
Stupendous guest and seized eternal youth 

Seized in our name." 

Therefore " Look not every man on his own things, 
but every man also on the things of others. Let this 
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," "for 
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 



230 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, 
that ye through His poverty might be rich." O, if I 
could, I would give an emphasis to these words that 
would rivet them in your hearts forever. If I could, I 
would hold them up before your eyes until those eyes 
were filled with tears and all the selfishness of your na- 
ture consumed away, for they involve the great idea, 
they illustrate the very duty I wish most indelibly to im- 
press upon every mind and heart this day, namely, that 
of a personal sacrifice, in the interests of our common 
humanity for the honor, dignity, and nobility of our 
common nature. O, there is a sublimity, a moral gran- 
deur like a halo of glory encircling this idea betokening 
its celestial birth. This is an idea conceived in heaven 
in the mind of God, as the germ of a new creation, as 
the principal of a new order of things in the amplitude 
of its unfolding beyond all finite comprehension, at- 
tempting the admeasurement of which the laboring Arch- 
angel was baffled and blushing for his honor, trem- 
blingly laid his burden at the feet of God and humbly 
owned his impotence; an idea never fully illustrated 
save when the Word, the eternal Word, was made flesh 
and dwelt among us. 

But, contemplating the human family in its more 
obvious, though less vital relations as socially, and po- 
litically organized, we find the obligations mutually 
binding the individuals composing it, to contribute, as 
far as possible, to the general good in all respects, 
equally, unavoidable and authoritative. 

These obligations may be regarded as inseparable 
from a state of universal, social, and political interde- 
pendency. There is a strange and I may say a beauti- 
ful network of mutual dependence pervading society, 
of which all, are to some extent, conscious.- Vainly do 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 2S1 

we strive to evade the force of this fact. An exemp- 
tion from this condition of our being cannot be found. 
For, despite the cowardly caprice of the recluse in his 
hermitage, or cell, despite the vain glory of the purse- 
proud, spurning his fellows through confidence in the 
all-sufficiency of gold, despite the unnatural disgust of 
the misanthropist, who hates his nature simply because 
it is human, despite all, I say, the sentiment of the poet 
remains forever true : 

God never made an independent man ; 

It would jar the concord of the general plan. 

Besides, our dependence socially and politically is 
too universally felt and acknowledged to admit of a ra- 
tional doubt. Pride may indeed strive to conceal the 
fact, but universal consciousness betrays its existence. 
The promptings of self-love may occasion the delay of 
its recognition, but the stroke of calamity will counter- 
act the unnatural promptings and superinduce a speedy 
and unqualified acquiescence in the truth. Then the 
strong become weak, the firm feeble, and the lightning 
smitten oak gladly shelters the delicate vine that binds 
up its shattered trunk. And not only so, but the most 
delightful of our enjoyments are such as have their 
origin in the society of our fellow men. Our dependence, 
in this respect, cannot be questioned, How soon, in- 
deed, would existence become a burden and life itself 
a flavorless, insipid thing, were all the sources of its 
enjoyment limited to ourselves, were we debarred the 
pleasures of 

"Society, friendship, and love, 
Divinely bestowed upon man." 

Now, it is evident that he who is dependent, is un- 
der obligations, is a debtor to those upon whom he is 
thus depending. It matters not in what this depend- 



232 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ence consists. It may be for the most trifling good, for 
the most insignincent favor conferred. Still, it involves 
a real obligation, and one which the subject of it is 
bound by every righteous and honorable consideration, 
to acknowledge, and as far as in him lies, to meet with • 
a reciprocity of kindness. There is in the case of every 
man, a vast debt, which he owes to society, a debt not 
recoverable by any legal process, a debt of honor which 
it is left to his own magnanimity to recognize and to 
liquidate. Gratitude, and the sense of justice in every 
man, proclaims him a debtor in this respect, and sternly 
enforces the obligation to pay. 

Indeed, the very existence of what is called the 
common-good or general welfare of society, carries with 
it the obligation of each and of all to contribute to that 
good. There, are, for instance, certain natural and in- 
alienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, common to all men, and fundamental to the 
prosperity and general tranquillity of society. In these 
rights, all are equally interested. They are a common 
heritage. They are the very basis on which society 
rests, the very foundation stone on which the mighty 
superstructure is reared. Now, there are no rights 
without corresponding duties. Mutual rights imply 
mutual obligations to guard and defend them. Hence, 
it is something every man owes to every other man, and 
to society in general, that he contribute, in all possible 
ways and to the utmost of his ability, to the security 
and maintenance of these rights. And, indeed, nature 
herself vindicates the claims of society upon the indi- 
vidual in this respect, as is evident from the fact that 
no violation of the common welfare can ever fail to re- 
act fearfully upon the individual violating. He who 
poisons the fountain at which all must drink, is his own 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 233 

destroyer. Paramount to the injury he inflicts upon 
society, is the injury he inflicts upon himself. He who 
fails in his support of law and order in the city or in 
the Commonwealth, just to that extent imperils his own 
safety. In every blow aimed at the common welfare, 
there is a rebound which its author is, in some way, 
sure to feel. This moral reaction upon the defender of 
the consequences of crimes committed against the pub- 
lic good, would seem inevitable from the law of retri- 
bution. 

Such a law does exist. For, notwithstanding the 
frequent delays of punishment and the consequent hope 
of final impunity thereby engendered in the hearts of 
the vicious, it is, nevertheless in every case as much 
the voice of nature as of revelation that ''with what 
judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what 
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 
For as in the material world there is such an adjust- 
ment of its varying forces, as to produce an equilibrium 
involving the harmony of the entire system, so in the 
moral world its equilibrium must be maintained by even- 
handed justice dispensing to every man as he has dis- 
pensed to others. The merit of the atonement may in- 
deed be interested on the side of the offender, and thus 
the consequences of his transgressions to some extent 
averted, otherwise the issue of this world's drama will 
be characterized by a dispensation of equity requiring 
as its indespensable condition eye for eye, tooth for 
tooth, burning for burning, wound for wound. 

But especially are natural rights in peril apart from 
religion. So thought the old heathen as oft as in be- 
half of these endangered rights he invoked the interpo- 
sition of the gods. In every age have natural rights 

found in moral considerations their strongest support. 

16 



234 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Apart from these considerations, the highest civiliza- 
tions have failed either to recognize or to conserve them. 
The security and maintenance of natural rights are de- 
pending on the existence of certain great moral condi- 
tions in society, on the existence in society of certain 
great conservative elements in thewide diffusion therein, 
of the principals of justice, mercy and truth, and the 
prevalence of all the virtues. Hence to the superin- 
ducing in society of these great moral conditions or 
conservative elements through the Christianization of 
all nations, and the dissemination of the principals and 
precepts of the Bible universally, is each especially under 
obligations, in all possible ways, to contribute. 

Herein is our mutual indebtedness. To this is each 
bound simply as a citizen, simply as a member of a com- 
munity in whose highest good he is an actual personal 
participant, and in whose ultimate glory he expects to 
share. So that not until the society of earth shall be 
remodeled and re-organized on a basis admitting of a 
perfect independence of being and isolation of interests 
among the individuals composing it, can the obligations 
of any to contribute to the utmost of his ability, to the 
general welfare be regarded as doubtful or precarious. 

But especially contemplating the human family as 
redeemed by Christ, as re-organized under the influ- 
ences of Christianity, do we find the obligations of 
which we speak still more evident and constraining in 
their character. 

And here we take our position, on higher, and still 
holier ground, and contemplate the individual, not sim- 
ply as a part of the creation of God, or as a partici- 
pant in a common humanity, not simply as a member 
of society, swayed by considerations, social and po- 
litical, but as the subject of a higher law, as under the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 235 

law of Christ, the law of love, "Thou shall love thy 
neighbor as thyself. " This is emphatically the law of 
Christ. It is the law of His life, and the law of His 
lips. 

But just here it may be asked : Who is my neighbor? 
I scorn to apply as answer to this question, the dictates 
of a narrow, and a selfish heart. For, in order to avoid 
the inevitable duty involved in the more extended ap- 
plication of the term, namely, the duty of universal 
love which, to such a heart, seems absolutely impossi- 
ble, it limits the term, neighbor, to a few loved friends, 
or, perhaps, interested acquaintances. 

But the Christian spurns, as the hell-wrought chain 
of a moral despotism, all such ungenerous limitations 
and unnatural distinctions, and with an open hand, and 
with an open heart, says to all, and to each of Adam's 
race, "Thou art my neighbor, and to thee I owe a 
neighbor's friendly part." In the all-embracing sym- 
pathies of the Christian heart, "every man in the 
world, every child of him, who is the father of the spir- 
its of all flesh, without distinction of race, color, or con- 
dition, is regarded as the subject of the unlimited pre- 
cept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself?" 

Or, is this, by any, regarded as too broad an appli- 
cation of the term ? What, then, are the teachings of 
the Saviour? Go read the history of the good Samari- 
tan. There you will find portrayed, a philanthropy 
which the cold and chilling systems of this world's 
philosophy, and its merely human ethics never taught, 
a philanthropy, which forgets all distinctions, whether 
of time or place, whether artificial, accidental, or cir- 
cumstantial, a philanthropy, which, forgetting self, 
stops not, to calculate or to inquire, but, which fixing 
its tearful gaze upon the wounds and bruises, and putre- 



236 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

fying sores of its suffering object, swerves not from 
its work and labor of love, a philanthropy, which waked 
into being and power, by the inspiration of heaven, and 
guided into its activities, by all noble, human sympa- 
thies, hails, as his neighbor, every human being, and 
which, extending the hand of charity to all, whether 
friend or foe, the very moment they come within its 
reach, performs all a neighbor's honest, upright, manly 
part. This, then, my brethren, is philanthropy, as over 
and against the illiberal spirit of priest and Levite pass- 
ing by, on the other side. Christian philanthropy, pure 
and simple, as conceived in the mind of Him Whose 
hand guides the destinies, and Whose heart embraces 
the world. But, alas, how fearfully at variance with 
the sublime teachings of the Saviour are the sentiments 
of the great majority of the human family. How sadly 
is human practice recreant to Jehovah's law, and human 
sympathy, alien to its holiest obligation. By the law 
of Christ, then, we are under obligations, debtors to all 
men to love them as ourselves. 

But how are the obligations imposed by this law to 
be met ? what are its practical requirements ? The 
Apostle answers, " Bear ye one another's burdens and 
so fulfill the law of Christ." The obligations imposed 
by this law, are those of mutual forbearance, assistance, 
and sympathy. It binds its subjects to every act of 
charity, to every work and labor of love of which he is 
capable, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit 
the sick, and them that are in prison. It requires in 
the hearts of all, the sympathies of the good Samaritan, 
and in their hands the oil, and the wine. Thus fur- 
nished, it sends them forth on errands of mercy. It 
commissions them to go forth upon all the dangerous 
highways of life, and in all the thief and robber infested 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 237 

paths where tread the feet of men, there to seek and to 
recover from its unnumbered calamities our waylaid and 
half-dead humanity. Disdaining every limit, not em- 
bracing the whole human family, it requires of all and 
in behalf of all the tender assiduities of a pitying love, 
saying, "If thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst 
give him drink." 

This, then, my brethren, is the lofty yet sweetly 
subduing, tenor of the law of Christ, the law of love. 0, 
that its obligations were more generally regarded ! How 
soon, then, would the universal brotherhood of our 
race which religion teaches-, and all nature fortifies, be 
practically and forever vindicated, and the bosoms now 
heaving with sorrow, palpitate with joy. 

Thus have I endeavored to glance at the broad and 
immutable basis, of that great missionary sentiment, 
the Apostle's life underlying, and controlling, and by 
him so distinctly recognized in the declaration, "I am 
debtor." The apostle means to say, " I have been en- 
trusted with the glorious gospel of the blessed God, 
and, as a man, as a citizen, as a Christian, and as a 
Christian minister, I owe it to every other man, to the 
Greek, and to the Barbarians, to the wise, and to the 
unwise, to share with him, the possession of it. And 
this fact of indebtedness to the whole heathen world, so 
distinctly recognized by Paul, all Christendom is now 
compelled to confront. From the obligation, as far as 
possible, to disseminate everywhere, and to all men, 
the gospel of Christ, no one to whom that gospel has 
come, can plead exemption. 

To the achieving then, of any result in which all 
are mutually interested, all are mutually under obliga- 
tions to contribute. We are all looking for the good 
time coming. To the hastening on of that time, each 



238 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

must sacrifice something. The most fatal element 
abroad in society and the meanest, is selfishness* It is 
an infinite absorbent. It receives, but never gives. It 
has a fist that never opens., but to grasp, a grip, that 
never relaxes, only to take a faster hold. It revels in 
monopoly, and organizes for the purposes of greed. 
Selfishness is ever ready to commend the temple of vir- 
tue, and when once amid the toils, and tears of others, 
its deep foundations are firmly laid, and the noble su- 
perstructure reared, is ever willing to enjoy its bene- 
dictions, to find a covert beneath its ample dome, and 
render all its glory subservient to sinister ends. 

When once the tree of life is planted, and presents 
a goodly shade, it is the very first to take shelter be- 
neath its extended boughs, to laud its symmetry, and 
extol its fair proportions. 

But just here would 1 make my appeal to that very 
selfishness, which has hitherto bound up your hearts, 
and weighed down your hands, and, if possible, would 
render, even it, a powerful instrument in the cause of 
virtue. For, by the teaching of God's word, we are 
encouraged to anticipate a period in this world's history, 
characterized by no common triumph, burdened with no 
common glory, a period in which the society of earth 
as now organized, and by the power of an applied 
Christianity, into the possession, and exercised of all 
its alienable rights and prerogatives advanced, shall 
have crystallized into the kingdom of God, a period, in 
which the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, shall fill 
the earth, as the waters cover the sea, "when the 
heathen shall be given to the son for His inheritance, and 
the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession," 
when truth shall triumph over error, liberty and justice 
over oppression and fraud, and our earth, emerging from 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 239 

amid the waves and woes of sin's vast deluge, shall 
greet with vocal cheer, the light of an eternal day. 

Come, then, let us advance a few years, or if you 
please a few centuries of years in the line of human des- 
tiny. We will not linger as we pass to note events. 
Babylon is fallen, the false prophet cast into the lake 
of fire. Satan bound and to the bottomless abyss con- 
signed. In advance of all this we stand. Hark ! we hear 
the anthems of the blood-washed millions as they shout 
forth the grand expanding jubilee of an evangelized 
world. Hark ! we stand amid the resounding hallelu- 
jahs of the millennium, styled in the expressive imagery 
of inspiration "the marriage supper of the lamb," the 
nuptials of heaven and earth for the celebration of 
which, heaven wakes all her harmonies and earth puts 
on her bridal wreath. Of this entire earth, each feature 
is radiant and each nerve is quivering with joy. Even 
her wildernesses and her solitary places are glad, and 
her very deserts rejoice and blossom as the rose. Lo, 
we stand on the jasper walls of the New Jerusalem, 
already descended from God out of heaven prepared as 
a bride adorned for her husband. And now as from 
summit and vale the mighty acclaims of earth's redeemed 
ascend the skies, from heaven an answering voice pro- 
claims, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men," 
while upon our entranced hearts, gathers the weight of 
a wondrous and indescribable joy. 

But tell me, O, tell me now, amid all this glory, dost 
thou desire to stand mute, with the horrifying reflection, 
that amid a thousand opportunities, thou didst nothing 
to swell this jubilee, nothing to hasten this result, or, 
shouldst thou, then, in strange forgetfulness of the past, 
attempt to lift up thy voice in the presumptuous hope 
that thou mightest enjoy what others had toiled and 



240 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

suffered to secure, would it not grate horribly amid the 
symphonies of that hour, even as a demon's voice in 
heaven? Would not the rising gust of glory be trans- 
formed into a quiver of thunderbolts, to strike thee 
dumb forever? Nay, if thou wouldst honorably enjoy 
the covert and the reward of virtue, thou must contri- 
bute to its cultivation. If, when the great temple of 
religion now going up in the earth is completed, thou 
wouldst have a place in it, thou must help to build it. 
And, when, at last, that temple is finished and the mul- 
titudes of the faithful of all ages shall, with tabret and 
harp, go in to worship beneath its completed dome, I, 
for one, want to go in with them, and, as there I stand, 
and, with that jubilant throng, gaze upon those massive 
walls, to the rearing of which patriarch, and prophet, 
and apostle, each in his measure contributed, I, also, 
want to be able to point to some humble memorial of 
my own toil and say, perchance, to some admiring angel 
hovering near, "that is my work; in the strength of 
God's almighty grace, I put that stone there." 



CHAPTER XI. 



&§t Srutf) as fit fis tn Jesus. 

"If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, 
as the truth is in Jesus." — Eph. iv. 21. 

Incidentally there fell from the lips of Pilate dur- 
ing the trial of our Saviour one question, the seeking a 
satisfactory answer to which has quickened our nature's 
pulse and exhausted its energies from the earliest times: 
•'What is truth?" Into the solution of this question 
may be resolved all the restlessness of our race. Vast 
armies marching forth in battle's dread array, with wast- 
ing fire and devastating sword, grave senates debating 
whole centuries away, courts of judicature with all their 
judges and juries and endless litigation, institutions of 
learning with all their extensive boards of instruction, 
their numerous delving students, their books and maps 
and charts have only existed and labored to solve the 
question: "What is truth ? " The daring navigator, 
steering his lone vessel to the Northern star, cutting his 
way through islands of ice until he makes his grave amid 
Polar seas ; the unwearied traveler, urging his way into 
distant lands, standing on the ruins of desolated cities 
or musing amid the tombs of ancient heroes and men of 
renown, have only gone forth in search of an answer to 
the question : " What is truth ? " Thus, all the agita- 
tions of commerce and trade, the debatings of politics, 
the experiments of agriculture, the ingenuity of art, the 
investigations of science, the researches of literature 

241 



242 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

and indeed all the activity and all the energy manifested 
throughout the various branches of human industry and 
enterprise, are but the indications of an ever active and 
widely circulated intelligence, longing and laboring to 
grasp the tremendous import of the question : "What 
is truth ? " 

Neither, indeed, is the activity thus exhibited with 
a view to the solution of this question, in the least un- 
natural, inasmuch as there is a most intimate relation 
existing between the truth and all the higher interests 
of our humanity. Between the truth and the soul of 
man, there is a natural affinity, a correspondence di- 
vinely established. As is the light to the eye, as is the 
sound to the ear, so is truth to the mind of man. The 
truth wanting, and what have you ? a spirit famished, a 
mind in all its powers dwarfed and blighted and doomed 
to inevitable decay. Truth is the safeguard of right, 
the mainspring of freedom, the essence of knowledge, 
the fountain of happiness, the fulcrum of power, the 
offspring of God. Hence its majestic form is embalmed 
in the tears of the injured, while at its shrine is poured 
forth, as a rich libation, the blood of the patriot. The 
ignorant hail it even as the benighted traveler the break 
of day ; the wretched greet it as their benefactor ; the 
helpless lean upon it as their friend, while responsive to 
its voice, all the good rally to its standard, pledging to 
it victory on earth and immortality in heaven. 

If, then, such is the intimate relation existing be- 
tween the truth and all the higher interests of our hu- 
manity, well may it become the ambition of our race to 
go out after it in all directions, everywhere searching 
for it as for hidden treasures, ceaselessly striving to lay 
under contribution to our nature's advancement, what- 
ever of help or of hope it may embody. And there are 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 243 

not wanting the indications that in the mighty struggle 
tending to this result, our humanity will not be thwarted. 
The incorporation of truth with the aggregate intel- 
lect of our race, is a process steadily advancing. The 
field of vision is perpetually widening, the objects em- 
braced therein are becoming ever more and more dis- 
tinct. Like the mariner on some voyage of discovery, 
so man in search of truth, ventures out upon the great 
untraversed deep of the unknown, and though ofttimes 
driven by adverse winds, still rights his vessel and pur- 
sues his onward course. Many verdant islands, unknown 
before, lift themselves into his delighted vision which 
multiplying as he advances, betoken his near approach 
to some grand and yet undiscovered realm, until, finally, 
the vast continent lies outspread before him. 

Upon this voyage of discovery, however, many have 
gone forth depending for direction, solely upon the 
light of reason's glimmering star. But the light of this 
dim orb, so fitful and so unsteady, so liable to be 
shrouded in darkness, and in tempest, often, when 
most needed, is of least avail, so that the frail bark, 
guided by it only, is compelled to linger perpetually 
along the coasts of time, or, if ever driven out upon the 
sea of a broader investigation, it goes only at random, 
utterly failing to reach any safe and distant harbor. 
Others, however, have superadded to the star of rea- 
son, the compass of revelation, and thus guided, have 
moved fearlessly off from the coasts of time, and, with 
an adventurous energy, touched even upon the shores 
of immortality. Thus, as the mariner of the present 
day is, by the compass, enabled in spite of darkness 
and of tempest, to steer his vessel over wide and untrav- 
ersed seas, until safely anchored amid realms unvisited 
by the mariners of ancient times, whose only guide, 



244 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

perchance, was some lone and distant star, so the 
Christisn mariner, guided by the compass of divine 
revelation, is enabled to hold on his way defiantly, un- 
til his vessel lies peacefully anchored amid realms of 
truth, to which the light of reason's star could never 
have led the way. 

And, as those who had already entered, and were 
safely anchored within those realms of truth, into which 
divine revelation only can lead the way, the Apostle 
here addresses the Ephesians : "If so be that ye have 
heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth 
is in Jesus." 

We are, here, called to the consideration of the 
truth, as existing in a special relation, as assuming a 
special character, to the consideration of the truth as 
it is in Jesus. 

Bv the truth as it is in Jesus, we have indicated, 
simply, the gospel of Christ so-called, because of its pe- 
culiar and inseparable relation to Him, having no ex- 
istence, but in Him. Without a Jesus, there were no 
redemption, no gospel, no truth as it is in Jesus. It is 
truth originating in Jesus, subsisting by Him, deriving 
from Him all its cUgnity, vitality and saving power. It 
is truth of which the Spirit of Jesus is the eternal sub- 
stance, His word, the perfect type and unfolding, and 
the experience of the believer, the saving realization. 
And, as such, let us now contemplate it, glancing rap- 
idly at some of its more distinctive characteristics. 

The truth as it is in Jesus, is pure, without any ad- 
mixture of error. "God is light and in Him is no 
darkness at all." Such is the gospel entire. As a his- 
tory of the manifestation of God in Christ Jesus, it 
excludes absolutely everything that is false. The pur- 
est ray gilding the earth, has something of darkness in 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 245 

it. Not so, however, the outbeamings of the glory of 
Jesus gilding the sacred page. In that mighty chain of 
truth in the life and teachings of Jesus unfolded and by 
which our world is now held within the sphere of hope 
and all saving influences, and which only grows brighter 
and brighter the farther you trace it in the direction of 
the throne of God, there is not to be found one frac- 
tured link. When the angel undertook to represent this 
truth to St. John the divine, he showed it to him as a 
' pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding 
out of the throne of God and the Lamb." For six 
thousand years has this pure river of water of life 
skirted the landscape of human existence, without a 
tinge on its wave, or a sediment in its billow. And, 
though not unfrequently, unholy and designing men have 
endeavored to poison this crystal flood, still, with a 
self-purifying energy its waters have rolled on, bringing 
to the famishing millions that have crowded to its ver- 
dure-crowned banks, that divinely exhilarating draught 
that has recovered their wasted strength and made them 
immortal. As a divine history, then, as a history of 
God " manifest in the flesh," the gospel is truth, as in 
its more general features, so in all its wondrous and 
impressive details; as in its outlines, so in its embodi- 
ment; as in its principles, so in its conclusions. There 
is a sad admixture of error in all the systems of men. 
They contain, it is true, many conceptions, grand and 
beautiful, mixed, however, with much that is grovelling 
and base. They discourse, sublimely, of many deep 
and intricate questions, but, alas, how much of fable do 
they also embody? They remind us of Nebuchadnez- 
zar's image, composed of gold and silver and brass and 
iron and earth, fit emblem of these boasted intellectual 
structures, blending, as they often do, with the richest 



246 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

metals the vilest clay. Not so, however, with the truth 
as it is in Jesus. As a system, the gospel presents no 
weak or incongruous element. The image it unfolds to 
the contemplation of the enlightened reason, is an im- 
age of truth, grand, uniform truth. It is truth and only 
truth throughout. This image is all gold ; the pure gold 
of heaven without admixture and without alloy. 

But the truth as it is in Jesus, is also most elevated 
in its character. It is no baseless dream of the imagina- 
tion to which nothing in fact corresponds, no sickly 
sentimentality spun from a heated brain ; no mere in- 
vention of a poetic genius or creation of a gorgeous 
fancy; but the very truth and reality of God. The sub- 
limity of the gospel is a necessary consequence of its 
lofty origin. For, though its streams refresh the earth, 
its fountain is in heaven. It is a crystal river, proceed- 
ing ever out of the throne of God and the Lamb. It is 
the offspring of the infinite reason and, as such, is not 
only incapable of any affinity with error, but in point of 
dignity, stands infinitely removed from all the base and 
earth born progeny with which the morbid human im- 
agination has cursed the world. It is the wisdom of 
God in a mystery on all its features, bearing the im- 
press of a superhuman intelligence. The whole field 
of revelation is fragrant with divinity. It is the truth 
of a higher sphere, all redolent of immortality, wafted 
down from the bosom of God by an agency all divine, 
through infinite regions of purity and of love. 

The gospel is the truth not as it is in Abraham or in 
Moses, in David or in Paul, but the truth as it is in 
Jesus. In them it is as a treasure in earthen vessels, 
but in him as in a vessel of heavenly mould. " In him 
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. ,, 
And, if the excellency of the treasure is to be estimated 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 247 

by that of the casket in which it is enshrined, then cer- 
tainly, must the truth as it is in Jesus take precedence 
of the truth in every other relation and rank, as in 
reality it is, the sublimest verity of the universe. The 
gospel is the truth not as it is in any of the sages of an- 
tiquity, in Socrates or Plato or in philosophers of a later 
date, but the truth as it is in Jesus. Its residence is in 
him whose dwelling is in the bosom of the " Everlast- 
ing Father." Emanating from this high source, it 
stands invested with a corresponding dignity. For, as 
we do not look that the prattlings of an infant should 
equal in dignity the maxims of the philosopher, so 
neither should we expect the maxims of the philosopher 
to equal in granduer the wisdom of a God. 

This, then, is truth to the discovery of which the 
highest reason of man is in itself incompetent. il Which 
none of the princes of this world knew : for had they 
known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of 
glory." I admit that the apprehension of many truths 
in their nature and degree grand and important, has 
crowned the investigation of the human intellect in its 
laudable struggles to break away from the darkness in 
which its nativity is shrouded. Still, the truths thus 
apprehended, were ever short of the reality and conse- 
quently of the sublimity of the gospel. They were but 
the scintillations of an earthly fire, which, floating awhile 
through the dusky atmosphere, were at last extinguished, 
without in the least alleviating the surrounding gloom. 
The discovery of such truths is indeed evincive of the 
strength and comprehensiveness of the intellect appre- 
hending and evolving them ; yet, however grand or ex- 
cellent or elevated in themselves considered, or how- 
ever important in their sphere, or potent in their bear- 
ings on human life and human destiny, or, however by 



248 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the world applauded as the offspring of deep and patient 
research, all their glory vanishes in the presence of that 
gospel, the mighty burden of which is the love-fraught 
story of the cross, the wondrous fact that " God so loved 
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have 
everlasting life. " 

The truth as it is in Jesus, then, has to do with 
somewhat lying all together outside the sphere within 
which act and operate the merely natural powers of 
man. And, just by so much as it transcends the utmost 
range of the earthborn intellect, is it elevated, imposing 
and sublime. " Which things the angels desire to look 
into." Whatever is vast in the being, character, or 
attributes of God, in the origin, nature, or destiny of 
man, in the incarnation of Deity, in redemption through 
an atonement, in the resurrection of the dead and- 
eternal judgment, in heaven, or in hell, is reflected from 
the page of the Bible and is characteristic of the truth 
as it is in Jesus. O, who can comprehend the sub- 
limity, the moral grandeur of gospel truth ! Happy the 
man to the eye of whose faith is unveiled this truth in 
all its majesty and in all its attractiveness. He sees, in 
reality, what Jacob only saw in a dream, a ladder planted 
on the earth, its top reaching to heaven, and on it the 
angels of God ascending and descending. I would not 
exchange such a vision, no, not even for that vouchsafed 
to Peter in the holy mount. For in such a vision Jesus 
stands actually and permanently transfigured before me. 
The rays of divinity, the essential truth in Him, are 
perpetually emanating from His sacred person, investing 
it with a glory transcending even that with which He 
illumined Tabor's brow, a glory, indeed, of which that 
transient splendor was but the type and the foreshad- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 249 

owing and, which, with open face beholding as in a 
glass, I, too, am transfigured, "changed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord." Well might the Apostle designate this truth 
"the unsearchable riches of Christ," or as he does in 
another place, "the glorious gospel of the blessed 
God." 

But the truth as it is in Jesus is also complete. Not, 
however, that all truth is embraced in the gospel but 
simply that which is ultimate and eternal, essential to 
and conservative of the moral life of the world. Doubt- 
less, there are many truths as yet unknown, truths se- 
questered in untraversed regions ; standing aloof from 
detection ; bidding defiance to investigation ; with 
strange subtlety, lurking undiscovered -in every indi- 
vidual and in every department of the universe. These 
are truths, however, lying altogether outside the sphere 
of the special agency of the Spirit of God and, are, in 
no way depending on that agency either for their exist- 
ence or for their apprehension. They are truths, which, 
if known at all, are known to be such independently of 
the gospel and of which, consequently, no chronicle is 
found on the inspired page. 

Admitting all this, however, we may, I think, con- 
fidently affirm that such is the comprehensiveness of the 
truth as it is in Jesus, so vital its bearings upon all other 
truths that it wanting and they at once and forever cease 
to be. Their nature, relation and characteristics are 
instantly changed. At the basis even of all scientific 
truth, is the truth as it is in Jesus. It is the truth for 
which all other truths exist. It is of the universe the es- 
sential , the vital germ the force all other forces gov- 
erning ; deeper than we know, the organic life principle 
underlying and imparting to all other things their mean- 

i7 



250 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ing and their reality, so that it abstracted and all else is 
husk and vanity, a mockery, a lie. The truth of the 
gospel wanting and the universe were the most ridicu- 
lous thing imaginable. 

Hence, also, is the truth of the gospel that by which 
the reality of all other things is tried. There is truth in 
nothing contradictory to this. All the deductions of 
philosophy and theories of men of science, whatever 
their pretensions, must harmonize with this ultimate 
standard or be abandoned forever. Whensoever any 
proposition is found incapable of this test, that moment 
its existence as the symbol of truth is annihilated and 
there is no combination of powers possible, competent 
to summon it again from the death-shade or to impart to 
it a substance or a reality. 

The completeness of any system or theory, however, 
is to be judged of, chiefly by its practical efficiency ; by 
its adaptation to the end for which it is designed. What- 
ever its characteristics in other respects, if it fail in this 
it is not complete. The ingenious mind may indeed de- 
vote its energies to the production of theories of agri- 
culture, of mechanics, of government or of religion, 
and, considered simply as such, they may be regarded 
as perfect and entire as wanting nothing and yet if found 
incapable of a successful practical application, they can 
only be rejected as insufficient and incomplete. Their 
want of success proves their deficiency. It proves that 
however correct or praiseworthy, in the abstract, there 
is the absence, at least, of that particular truth on 
which their practical efficiency depends. Hence, a suc- 
cessful, practical application is the best evidence of the 
completeness of any theory. For, when successful in 
this respect whatever may be objected against the theory 
itself, or the various parts of it by the fastidious and 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 251 

the critical, can weigh but little in the estimation of 
men to whom practical results are paramount to all con- 
siderations of mere taste and feeling. 

Hence, when I say of the truth as it is in Jesus, that 
it is complete, I simply mean that it is comprehensive 
of all that is requisite to its efficiency considered as a 
soul-saving system. The gospel is a theory. It is God's 
own theory of redemption, His own great plan origi- 
nated for the salvation of the world. It is designed to 
save souls. For this purpose it is complete. It is ex- 
clusive of nothing essential to this end, nor inclusive of 
aught that is not in some way tributary to it. It saves 
the soul. It accomplishes this result and accomplishes 
it perfectly, so that contemplating its efficiency in this 
respect, we are beyond measure astonished and com- 
pelled to testify concerning it, even as did the Jews 
concerning the Saviour, that it " hath done all things 
well ; it maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to 
speak." The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
soul." In practical application, the gospel never fails. 
Who ever trusted it and was disappointed ? For two 
thousand years has it proved itself equal to the emer- 
gency, equal in every case however wretched or forlorn. 
This is the test of its completeness. It may not please 
the fastidious ; it may even offend the critical ; it may 
fail to meet the approbation of the proud disputer of 
this world ; to the Jew it may be a stumbling-block ; to 
the Greek it may be foolishness, but it does save the 
soul. It is able to make us wise unto salvation. 

Hence, whatever objections may be urged against 
the gospel, or the various parts of it, considered as a 
system, falls to the ground when confronted with the 
assertion of Paul, whose bold and fearless declaration, 
concerning this gospel is, that "it is the power of God 



252 THE VOICE 0U1 OE THE CLOUD. 

unto salvation, to every one that believeth." And this, 
let me say, is a declaration that need not go begging 
for vouchers. It has them already, to the fullest extent 
which the interests of the truth, can possibly require. 
It has them in the history of the past, written in mar- 
tyrs' blood. It has them to-day, in the jubilant shouts 
of enfranchised millions. It will have them to-mor- 
row, and the next day, in the constantly progressive tri- 
umphs of the cross, and forever, in the glad experience 
of that blood-washed throng, who, having, through 
much tribulation, reached the immortal shore, shall, in 
strains unceasing, and through all eternity, celebrate 
the victory of the truth, in the presence of God and the 
Lamb. 

But, the truth, as it is in Jesus, is also, most com 
manding in its evidence. Unlike the vague and unau- 
thorized conclusions of mere human speculations, it 
comes with a corroboration, simply irresistable, save to 
the stubborn and the willfully incorrigible. It is not 
here assumed, however, that the truth, as it is in Jesus, 
is the subject of sensible demonstration, as is the exist- 
ence of external nature. It is not assumed that the 
evidence on which it is based, is irresistible, like that 
which controls the mind in its progress through the 
demonstration of a mathematical problem. The evi- 
dence is not demonstrative and scientific, but deduc- 
tive and moral ; such, only, as is in the nature of the 
case, possible, yet, vastly more satisfactory than is 
that, which in numberless instances, in ordinary life, we 
deem abundantly sufficient to elicit our faith and to 
control our activities. 

According to the testimony of the sacred writers, the 
gospel made its appearance in our earth, not as an intruder 
upon human credulity, but as the amply and divinely 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 253 

accredited interpreter of Jehovah's will ; not as basely 
insinuating itself into the world's favor, by artifice and 
chicanery, but as a legitimate claimant upon the affec- 
tions of mankind and the hospitality of the universe. 
Conscious of its presence in this capacity, all nature 
rose up to do it reverence. Stupendous miracles at- 
tested its divinity. It was God's own truth and God 
Himself endorsed its claims and signally vindicated 
against the alien temper of the age its right to be ac- 
cepted as divine and enshrined in the faith and the af- 
fections of mankind. 

But, especially, does the whole system of Christi- 
anity center in Christ. Apart from Him, it cannot ex- 
ist. The whole gospel as in the text indicated, is the 
truth as it is in Jesus and in Him has that truth received 
its sublimest attestation. Whatever is in confirmation 
of the character of Jesus or of His claims as a teacher 
come from God, is in confirmation of the whole gospel 
or of all the truth that is in Him. But Him, emphat- 
ically, has God the Father sealed. Confirmatory seals 
such as sophistry can never invalidate or infidelity gain- 
say, attended Him in His birth and baptism, in His life 
and death, and, especially, in His resurrection from the 
dead and ascension into heaven. 

But, more especially, in the subsequent outpouring 
of the Holy Ghost, on the day of Pentecost, was real- 
ized a confirmation of the divinity of Jesus, and con- 
sequently, of all the truth that is in Him, than which 
there is none more satisfactory, none more conclusive. 
Indeed, this confirmation wanting, and all others were 
of no avail. This wanting, and where were the prom- 
ise of the Father, through all the past ages, kindling 
the hope of the world ? Where Christ's own promise 
to His desciples given, "If I depart, I will send the 



254 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Comforter unto you?" But, thank God, the confirma- 
tion of the day of Pentecost is not wanting. Every 
promise is fulfilled ; every pledge redeemed ; every 
assurance made good. Then, especially, was Christ 
justified in the Spirit. Then was mightily vindicated 
against all the contradictions of unbelief, and in the 
very hearts of His enemies, the character of that just 
one, and the authority of His mission as a teacher sent 
from God, established indisputably. His enemies had 
rejected Him, had crucified Him, sealed Him close in 
Joseph's sepulcher. They claimed that he was and im- 
poster, a dead Christ. But the day of Pentecost at- 
tested to all, that He was no imposter, that He was not 
a dead, but a living Christ. Amid the scenes of that 
day of wonders, and of immortal renown, are standing 
now, the multitude of those who have hitherto hated 
Christ, who have assailed His character, and clamored 
for His blood. But, lo, suddenly, strange emotions 
seize upon their struggling hearts, and from tongues 
of flame, in tones needing no interpreter, falls upon 
their astonished ears, a recital of the wonderful works 
of God, a testimony of the desciples, to the truth, 
as it is in Jesus. Amazed and doubting, they say, 
one to another, " What meaneth this ? " There is one 
standing there, that can tell them what it means. "It 
means," says Peter, "It means that this same Jesus 
Whom ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified 
and slain, God hath raised up, having loosed the pains 
of death, because it was not possible that He should be 
holden of it." It means that, that same Jesus of Naz- 
areth, Whom ye branded as an imposter, and crucified 
between two thieves, God had lifted into the heavens, 
and being thus, by the right hand of God, exalted, and 
having received of the Father, the promise of the Holy 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 255 

Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye do now see 
and hear." Never, before, had the light of conviction 
so like lightning gleams, flashed into the souls of men. 
Then was the character of Jesus, as the sent of God di- 
vinely approved, and His claims by the Spirit of God, 
irresistibly attested in the very consciences of His 
murderers, who, terror-stricken, exclaimed, "Men and 
brethren, what shall we do ? " 

Thus, through the power of His Spirit, and on the 
day of Pentecost, poured out upon our race, was a 
mighty conviction of the divinity of Jesus and of the 
truth that is in Him, wrought in the souls of men. To 
the pure tablet of regenerated hearts, was the truth that 
is in Him then transferred and so indelibly written there 
as never again to be obliterated. This transfer of the 
truth that is in Jesus, to the hearts of His people, is a 
process still going on in the world. It did not cease 
with the day of Pentecost. Every true believer has this 
truth divinely inscribed into his own soul. In him is 
this truth livingly enshrined. In him is the very spirit 
of the truth. And, whatever objections may be urged 
against the other evidences of the truth of the gospel, 
the consciousness of this indwelling Spirit of the truth, 
is an evidence which can never be invalidated. This 
is the evidence of experience, an evidence under the 
force of which the believer exclaims : "I know whom 
I have believed. In this relation, the truth becomes to 
the believer a part of his very life. It is, henceforth, a 
clear shining light in his soul, an intuition of which he 
is as conscious and as certain as he is of the fact that 
he lives and has a being. 

Thus, in the influence and work of the Holy Ghost, 
as on the day of Pentecost, and in all subsequent ages 
realized, is given to all who have eyes to see it, a stand- 



256 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ing monument to the truth as it is in Jesus. This is a 
monument, for the building of which all the centuries 
anterior had been laid under contribution for materials 
and consecrated in the way of general preparation, a 
monument, the plan of which, though originating in 
heaven, from all eternity in the mind of God conceived, 
had, nevertheless, long been submitted to the inspection 
of patriarchs and seers, in whose lengthened vision the 
completed edifice already rose in luminous grandeur 
over the verge of the gospel dispensation. This plan, 
gradually and only partially developed under the law, 
was more fully unfolded and decisively outlined in the 
teachings of Jesus, who, having perfected His work, 
ascended to heaven, whence He commissioned the 
Spirit of truth, the Divine Architect, at whose bidding 
the foundations of this monument were, on the day of 
Pentecost, suddenly laid, and under whose perpetual 
superintendence the mighty superstructure, rising heav- 
enward until this day, shall continue to rise until some 
time, away on in the future, the top stone shall be 
brought upon it with shoutings of, " Grace, grace 
unto it !" 

Yes, more than eighteen hundred years have now sped 
their weary way, since, amid the shouting of three thou- 
sand tongues of fire, were suddenly laid at Jerusalem 
the foundations of this monument to the truth as it is in 
Jesus. Heaven had provided that nothing should be 
wanting to distinguish the occasion and render impres- 
sive the grand event. With befitting pageantry of mi- 
raculous manifestation, was the scene introduced. Men 
of "every nation under heaven" were there to witness 
the imposing ceremony. Parthians and Medes and 
Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea 
and Capadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pam- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 257 

phylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Libya, about Cyrene 
and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and 
Arabians, all were there. It was a monument to the 
truth in which all nations were interested and it was 
meet the representatives of all nations should, by their 
presence, signalize the occasion. Various indeed were 
the emotions with which this monument was contem- 
plated by the assembled spectators, as in stately mag- 
nificence is started up before them. Some were con- 
founded, some doubted, some were troubled, some ridi 
culed it, pointed at it the finger of scorn, others amazed 
and wondering, said one to another, as tremblingly they 
gazed upon it, " What meaneth this ? " 

Many a shining stone, with many a heavenly shout 
has been added to this monument since that day. On 
its vast foundations, ever deepening and ever widen- 
ing, its corner-stones already answering to the four 
quarters of the globe, this monument now rises the ad- 
miration of God, the wonder of angels, the glory of the 
universe, the grandest achievement of all the ages, the 
eternal testimony of the Spirit of God to the truth as it 
is in Jesus. Frail monuments erected by mortal hands 
to perpetuate the deeds of men, frail, I say, though 
made of marble, are falling all around it and into dust 
decaying, still this monument is firm. Sullen, like the 
surging of old ocean on the stubborn shore, have the 
waves of infidelity beaten against it, still immovable it 
stands, repelling without effort their redoubled assault, 
reckless of their froth and foam. Fiercely, and through 
all the intervening centuries, have the bolts of hell and 
all ungodliness been hurled against it, yet heaven- 
shielded and with still increasing strength and massive- 
ness it rises up from its eternal base, without an inden- 
tation or a scar, higher and still higher, into the very 



258 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

depths and stillness of the over-arching and ever bright- 
ening sky, its summit already wreathed with the light of 
the slowly dawning millennium. 

But, finally, the truth as it is in Jesus is also most vital 
in all its relations. All truths are not equally vital to 
the well being of man. There are some truths bearing 
so lightly on human character and human destiny, as 
that it is scarcely worthy a momentary effort to secure 
a knowledge of them. There are others, however, a 
distinct apprehension of which we should more earnestly 
endeavor to secure, truths controlling and directing in 
the management of our secular life, though still of minor 
importance in their relation to the ultimate welfare of 
our race. The only absolutely vital truth is the truth 
of the gospel, the truth as it is in Jesus, bearing, as 
it does, directly, and with a force unlimited both 
upon the temporal and the eternal happiness of man- 
kind. 

And, in what, I ask, are we more vitally interested 
than in the truth as it is in Jesus ? It answers, I admit, 
no questions of Euclid, solves no problems of mathe- 
matics, yet it does furnish us with a very distinct and 
satisfactory answer to that most awful of all questions, 
''What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul ? " It involves, I admit, 
no disclosures of the medicinal qualities residing in the 
vegetable and mineral kingdoms of nature, or of the 
physician, by whose skill disease is arrested and death 
indefinitely postponed. But it is infinitely more. It is 
a disclosure of all the healing, soothing potencies of the 
kingdom of grace and to our trembling faith a revela- 
tion of that great Physician of souls, by whose infallible 
remedies, all our spiritual maladies are arrested and 
death is not only indefinitely postponed, but actually 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 259 

abolished and life and immortality brought to light and 
pledged to every trusting soul. 

True, the gospel furnishes us with no models of art, 
of sculpture, or of painting, but in Christ Jesus, exhib- 
its to us a Model for imitation, in the formation of a 
moral character, which shall live to be admired when 
chiseled marble shall have decayed; a model for imita- 
tion in the production of a picture which, though now, 
perchance, all unhonored and all unheralded by the 
world's applause, is yet most eminently prized of God, 
by whom, also, it shall, ultimately, be accepted with 
plaudits divine and consecrated to beautify the cham- 
bers of eternity and to be forever the object of the 
ceaseless admiration of all the hosts of heaven. 

Neither, indeed, does the gospel pretend to deter- 
mine precisely the natural boundaries of states and em- 
pires, or to furnish us with an exact chart of the various 
countries and continents of the globe. But it does 
claim to give us a very distinct and satisfactory outline, 
at least, of a country, in the character and locality of 
which we are all vastly more deeply interested. It is 
crowded with the representations of that country that 
lies just on the other side of the grave, that country 
from which no traveler returns; into which the denizens 
of earth are now, one after another, so rapidly emigra- 
ting ; into which have already emigrated many of the 
companions of our pilgrimage and within whose boun- 
daries each one of us shall, ultimately, make his eternal 
abode. It tells us of the city of that country, a city 
which lieth foursquare, a city which hath foundations, 
whose builder and maker is God, which hath no need 
of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the 
glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light 
thereof ; a city of gold, with walls of jasper, and whose 



260 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

angel guarded gates stand open night and day. It tells 
of the river of that country, a pure river of water of 
life, which, proceeding out of the throne of God and 
the Lamb, pours its crystal flood through the blissful 
plains of immortality, in channels arched all over by 
the bending boughs of the tree of life. It tells us, too, 
of the inhabitants of that country, all holy and all im- 
mortal, robed in white, love-dressed, glory-crowned, 
bearing victorious palm, chanting in strains perpetual, 
the mystic song of Moses and the Lamb. Yes, it tells 
us of a better country, that is, an heavenly, on which 
the blight of sin has never fallen, the soil of which is 
unmoistened by a single tear, in which the sighing of 
the disconsolate is never heard, where farewells are 
never spoken, where graves are never dug, where shrouds 
are never woven. Glory is on all its hilltops, verdure 
on all its plains. 

And best of all, the truth as it is in Jesus, tells how 
we may get to that country. We are strangers here and 
sojourners as all our fathers were. Homeless we wan- 
der to-and-fro. But of that better country we have 
heard. We know by the sighing of our souls that it is 
our native land. Thitherward we move. Our journey 
is through the wilderness. Ofttimes dark mountains 
encompass us round about, gloomily projecting their 
dense shadows athwart our path shutting out the light 
of day. Deep valleys intervene, dismal mountain gorges, 
through which tumble the enraged waters, intercept our 
advance. Frightful precipices, abysmal depths con- 
cealed by inpenetrable mists encroach on either hand, 
while all along our course, waiting our approach prowl 
the hungry beasts of prey. Thus beset with danger and 
every circumstance foreboding ruin, whither shall we 
look for light ? To what source for direction, but to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 261 

the truth as it is in Jesus, saying as did Peter, when 
driven to this last resort, " Thou only hast the words of 
eternal life." Thus guided, the Christian pilgrim may 
confidently anticipate the issue of his journey, and, 
stirred with ferventaspirations to realize that issue, moves 
steadily onward in the way while ever and anon as from 
lofty hilltop and through the tangled branches of the 
intervening forest, catching glimpses of the distant pin- 
nacles and spires of the celestial city, he, with the pious 
Jew returning home to Zion, exultingly exclaims, "My 
feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." 

Th.us the truth as it is in Jesus is most vital in all its 
relation. It is the only saving truth in the universe. I 
am a poor sinner, how is it with you ? Conscience 
smitten with the arrows of conviction pierced through 
and through with guilt and grief and shame oppressed 
and the intolerable forebodings of unquenchable fire. 
Tremblingly alive to my condition, I cry out in the 
depth and bitterness of soul anguish, "O wretched 
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death?" 

" Can my God His wrath forbear 
Me the chief of sinners spare? " 

I fly to the student of science anxiously seeking of 
him the knowledge of some truth to which I may anchor 
my soul in this the hour of its whelming grief. He 
talks to me long and learnedly of agencies of forces and 
of subtle powers of cause and effect, of laws of nature 
whose operations are uniform, perpetual and mysterious 
exhibited equally in the forming of a leaf and in the 
kindling of a star. But the truths of science are power- 
less in my case. 

I fly to the student of art. He talks to me enthusi- 
astically of beauty, of style, of form, of color, of sym 



262 THE VOICE 0U1 OF THE CLOUD. 

metry and of proportion, He talks of the great mas- 
ters whose fame has filled the world, of their genius, of 
their skill and of their wonderful invention. But from 
all this there comes no comforting ray to my benighted 
soul, no balm for my hurt. 

I fly to the student of history and imploringly ask, 
" Is there not in all the records of the past some truth 
involving the remedy my Case requires ? " Generously 
he traces the venerable record in my behalf. He reads 
of heroes and heroic deeds, of wars and rumors of wars, 
of carnage and rapine and of blood. He reads of cities 
built and cities destroyed, of nations enslaved and na- 
tions liberated, of empires rising and empires falling. 
He reads of kings enthroned and kings dethroned, of 
treaties formed and treaties broken, of faith pledged 
and faith violated, of intrigue, conspiracy and dire re- 
venge until loathingly my soul turns from the horrid re- 
cital saying, " There is in all this nothing for me, no 
healing for my hurt." I fly in this direction I fly in 
that, crying, " What must I do to be saved ? " I listen, 
I listen in vain. There comes no encouraging response 
to my cry ; all is silent as the grave. 

And now, at last, and almost despairingly, I turn to 
the student of the truth, as it is in Jesus, saying, " Hast 
thou a single word of comfort for a troubled soul ? " 
Instantly, and with the light of a tranquil hope in his 
eye, he turns to the sacred page and reads — and O how 
directly, and with what a mighty comforting power do 
His words find way to my soul — he reads, " It is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.'' 
" What is that," I say, " I think I see a ray of light. 
Read it again, read it slowly, so I can catch on to it, and 
and grasp its full import." " It is a faithful saying, and 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 263 

worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners-" " That is it," I exclaim. "That 
is the truth I have long waited to hear. I hear it now, 
I feel its power ; my chains fall off, my dungeon flames 
with light." "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners," for He saves me. This is the truth, as 
it is in Jesus, the truth that frees and fires the world, 
breaking from off the souls of its enslaved millions, the 
iron fetters of sin, and, with the inspiration of a new 
life, and a new hope, lifts humanity up from deg- 
radation's depths, into a sphere of activity, and of 
blessedness, to which even the loftiest conceptions of 
the highest reason, bear no comparison. Let us, then, 
individually, and through faith, vitally, and inseparably 
ally ourselves with the truth, as it is in Jesus, and then 
through an inward personal experience of it its saving 
power, shall we realize that this truth is not only pure, 
but purifying, not only elevated, but elevating, not only 
complete, but completing in all the purposes of its Au- 
thor ; then shall we realize that this truth is not only most 
commanding in its evidence, but as such, brings to our 
hearts, blissful exemption from all the misgivings, and 
perplexities of doubt, instead of perturbation and alarm, 
imparting the ground of an assured tranquillity and a 
divine repose. 



CHAPTER XII. 



"I have set the Lord always before me." — Psalm xvi. 8. 

From the context as well as from Peter's application 
of them on the day of Pentecost, *it is evident that the 
primary reference in these words is to the Messiah. 
They are expressive of the complete subordination of 
Christ as Mediator to the will of His Father and of that 
singleness of aim with which, as such, he ever labored 
for the attainment of the great object of His mission 
among men. We, however, shall regard them as indica- 
tive also of the complete subordination of the believer 
to Christ and, especially, as expressive of that constant 
reference to Christ, essential, on our part, in order to 
the attainment of the great ends which we, as Chris- 
tians, have in view. 

The dependence of man upon what is external to 
himself, is a matter of universal experience. Whether 
in the development of our nature's inherent powers, or 
in the achievement of those external results upon which 
that nature's welfare is depending, we are conscious al- 
ways of the need of some foreign help. Whatever our 
nature's latent susceptibilities, they wake only to the 
voices that reach them from without. I knew not what 
it was to love, until my mother pressed me to her bosom 
and with accents of tenderness, thrilled into responsive 
echoes the depths of my soul. "It was my mother's 
kiss," said West, "that made me a painter." Uncon- 

264 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 265 

sciously, we are shaped by our surroundings, imper- 
ceptibly moulded into character by sympathy with our 
associations. Even the natural scenery, amid which 
character is formed, has its influence/ as it affects the 
unfolding of inward power. And, especially, will that 
character be modified, ennobled or degraded by the ob- 
jects we deliberately set before us, and to the influence 
of which we voluntarily surrender ourselves by the ends 
we aim at, and in subordination to which we put forth 
our activities, so much so, indeed, that if you know the 
main object of a man's life, that upon which his mind 
is chiefly intent, and which, as a motive, dominates 
within the sphere of his earthly endeavors, you may, 
with certainty, predict the character that will be un- 
folded. Write it down, your aim determines your char- 
acter. Men grow to be like that they gaze at. 

What man wants then, what his moral nature imper- 
atively demands, is some object external to himself, an- 
swering to that nature's noblest susceptibilities and which, 
as ever present in his contemplations and, as a motive, 
ever influential, may elicit the whole energy of his being 
in the steadfast pursuit of those exalted ends, in the 
attainment of which his highest welfare is involved. 
That object does exist. It has its existence in the moral 
world, ^in Christ, especially, who, of that world, is the 
One grand central representative character; in whom 
all its glories culminate ; in whom all its perfections 
blend. 

Under no circumstances, then, can the Christian 
assume an independence of Christ. To His disciples 
He said, "Without me ye can do nothing." Any at- 
tempt to aehieve, without Him, the moral purposes of 
our existence, can only result in the most disastrous 

failure. We cannot lift ourselves into heaven. It is 

18 



266 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

not a goal to be reached through any process of inde- 
pendent self culture or development. We go up thither, 
if we go at all, only through the help of Another, to 
that height ascend only through Christ ; through His 
teaching, His guidance, His infallible leadership. The 
Christian is a mariner, in his frail bark, sailing on the 
ocean of time ; Christ is his Polar Star by which he nav- 
igates its stormy bosom, and gains the port of bliss 
securely. The Christian is a traveler, wending his way 
through earth's dreary wilderness; Christ is his Guide, 
by whom he is led in safety, amid its devious paths, to 
his distant home in heaven. The Christian is a war- 
rior, fighting for a country up on high; Christ is his 
Commander, by whom he is led forth to battle and to 
glorious victory. Christ, then, is the Christian's Polar 
Star; his Guide and his Commander; hence the neces- 
sity of setting Christ always before him. 

But, especially, is the Christian heir to a glorious 
destiny. This destiny, however, is depending upon 
the character he forms in this life. Hence the forma- 
tion of this character is a work of moment. He is like 
an artist, producing a single result upon the character 
of which his reputation, as such, is forever depending. 
Hence, like the artist he should ever keep his model be- 
fore him. The Christian's model is Christ. And that 
he set Christ always before him is the only condition on 
which he can attain to a character such as God will ac- 
cept now, and ultimately admit to his presence in heaven. 

As such, then, does the Christian set Christ always 
before him as his model, his example, as the highest 
type of the moral excellence to which he would attain, 
as the sublime standard into a conformity with which his 
whole character must be elevated ; as that into a like- 
ness with which he must wake before he can be satisfied. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE ClOUD. 26? 

Now, from a model, two benefits especially result 
to the artist. First, it is to him the source of instruc- 
tion. Second, it is to him the source of inspiration. 
And with a view to this two-fold advantage does the 
Christian set Christ always before him. 

i. As the source of instruction, as the living actual 
embodiment and representation to his mind of all the 
ideas and principles which he, as a Christian, is to com- 
bine in his own character and exhibit in his own life. 

And, there is, evidently, a very great advantage, ac- 
cruing to the Christian from such a living, actual em- 
bodiment, and representation of the ideas and princi- 
ples of Christianity, as are thus given him in Christ. 
The artist, who works with some approved model of the 
excellence he would achieve, constantly before his eyes, 
is supposed to work to much greater advantage than he 
who works independently of any such help. He may, 
indeed, have all the ideas and principles of his art, set 
forth in theory, or descriptively in a book, or by oral 
instruction, but theory is not enough. He must have 
that theory illustrated. It is difficult to deal with ideas, 
and principles in the abstract. Principles — what are 
they ? Can the eye see them, or the ear hear them ? 
We talk, indeed, of principles, as though we were on the 
most intimate terms with them. But abstractly of the 
forms in which they are represented, who knows any- 
thing about them ? They are the essence of the uni- 
verse, and lie embosomed in mystery, baffling appre- 
hension, spurning recognition by any faculty at our 
command, essentially reticent and unobtrusive, secret 
and intangible, remote from observation, the inhabi- 
tants of an invisible realm, unapproachable, incompre- 
hensible, known only by their effects and the varied 
forms they assume in the progress of their unfolding. 



268 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

I certainly know of no means of recognizing any one 
of the principles extant, either in the kingdom of nature', 
or of grace, save, by its effects, save, as it my be ob- 
truded upon our observation in some one or other, of 
the very varying forms, and actualities of the universe. 
In other words, principles must be illustrated in order 
to be known. 

Example, then, is necessary. In it, principles body 
themselves ; take on form and shape. In it, do we see 
them alive and acting, and operating to the production of 
their legitimate results. The knowledge of an idea or of a 
principle, may, by the help of an example, be easily 
acquired, while in the abstract, or from a merely verbal 
description, an intelligent conception of it would be 
exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. The demand 
for illustration is natural and must be met. I wa^it my 
teachers to illustrate ; I want to see what they are talk- 
ing about. Do not talk to me abstractly, in logical 
terms. I am tired of rules and definitions, disgusted 
with dry formulas. They do very well for advanced 
scholars, but I am a child, and cannot get at the idea 
in that way. Your broad generalizations, are well 
enough for those that are at the top. But, remember, 
I am not at the top. I exist simply, in the concrete, 
and have little facility for dealing with anything that 
does not exist in the same way. I want something tan- 
gible. If you are going to teach me how to be a Chris- 
tian, illustrate ; show me a Christian ; be a Christian 
yourself ; go and do something a Christian ought to do, 
and let me see how the principle operates. Put your 
great ideas into practice, put your principles into things; 
let me see them at work ; then, if ever, I shall be able 
to grasp them. 

Now it is in view simply of the difficulty of appre- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 269 

hendingin the abstract, or, as merely verbally expressed, 
the ideas and principles in accordance with which his 
moral character is to be unfolded, that, I affirm the 
great advantage accruing to the Christian from such a 
living, actual embodiment and representation of those 
ideas and principles as are given him in Christ. . Not, 
however, that I would, in the least, depreciate that 
merely verbal or descriptive representation of these ideas 
and principles as furnished us in the Bible. And yet, 
mere words, though inspired of heaven, can convey no 
knowledge, save of things of which, through other 
means, we already have some conception. Words are 
pictures, yet have no more likeness to that they repres- 
ent than the dollar has to the bushel of wheat it buys 
in the market. Talk, for instance, of crimson orscarlet, 
to the man that cannot distinguish colors. Will he get 
any just conception of what you are talking about? 
What idea would the word faith, or gentleness, or love, 
convey to the man who had never witnessed any living, 
actual exhibition of the moral quality it represents. We 
learn first the thing, then the word that represents it. 
Adam gave names to things. Hence, notwithstanding, 
all the ideas and principles of Christianity, have, through 
the direct inspiration of God, been definitely portrayed 
in the Bible, and, thus, in words, which the Holy Ghost 
teacheth, permanently embodied for the instruction of 
all the ages, yet it must be admitted that our under- 
standing of these ideas and principles is very much de- 
pending upon, or, at least, very greatly facilitated by 
the illustration they have received, in the life of Jesus. 
It may, indeed, be said, that these ideas and principles 
are all revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures, and 
recognized in the Old Testament saints, long before 
Jesus lived. Yet only typically in a sort of dim and 



270 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

shadowy way. As a matter of fact, the world knew 
little of long suffering, goodness, meekness, gentleness 
and love, until it saw Him. /Vnd though but a moment 
only he lingered in the world's vision, the conception 
of these graces he then originated in the minds of men, 
can never be obliterated. Of the written word the life 
of Jesus is the key. In Christ is the whole Bible illus- 
trated. He is the word of God not inspired, but in- 
carnate. 

Indeed, in the very method adopted by the sacred 
writers in their elucidation of divine truth, there is an 
acknowledgment of the fact that some such living, actual 
embodiment and representation of the ideas and prin- 
ciples of Christianity as are in Christ given to the world, 
is requisite to meet the necessities of the case. In all, 
at least, is there a tacit admission of the fact that a 
merely verbal or descriptive representation of these 
ideas and principles, is insufficient. If there is anything 
characteristic of the Bible, it is that it is so real, actual, 
tangible. Everything in it is alive. In it men are ex- 
hibited, not historically only, but scenically, dramat- 
ically, as the living representatives of the hidden forces 
swaying them, as incarnations of principles in them 
acting and counteracting and through them, operating 
to the production of their legitimate results. The style 
adopted by the sacred writers is eminently graphic, less 
explanatory than descriptive, not formal or technical, 
but simple and direct ; the abstract yields to the con- 
crete, principles body themselves, take on form and 
shape. They tell us not so much what Christianity is 
as what it does ; they speak less of its essence than of 
its power; they instruct us not so much by essays as by 
example. It is not a cold, logical system of virtue they 
have given us but a vivid lifelike portrayal of its un- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 271 

folding in human life and character. They exhibit truth, 
not so much in itself, as in its votaries. The eulogy of 
faith is the history of its champions. They not only 
tell us that faith is " the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen," but show it to us as in 
actual exercise in the life of Abraham and in all the Old 
Testament worthies. They show us meekness in Moses, 
fidelity in Caleb, courage in Joshua. They give us no 
formal definition of patience, but illustrate it in the his- 
tory of Job. Thus does the descriptive representation 
of virtue, as given in the Scriptures become through the 
characters they present, a living, actual one. 

And yet, after all that living actual embodiment or 
representation of the principles of Christianity, the ne- 
cessity of which is thus recognized, in the very method, 
adopted by the sacred writers, is not in any one of the 
mere human characters they present fully realized. In 
none is there to be found such a perfect combination or 
exhibition of these principles as would render it a suf- 
ficient example for the imitation of those who aim at the 
highest degree of moral excellence. In all is there to 
be found something of imperfection we dare not copy. 
Even Caleb of the Old Dispensation and Stephen of the 
New, though seemingly perfect in their generation and 
according to their opportunity, were scarcely sufficiently 
advanced to meet the higher requirements incident to 
the increased light of the present day. The Christian 
of the nineteenth century ought to be, in his experience, 
at least, deeper and broader, if not purer, than either 
of these. I have not the slightest disposition to parade 
human weakness or to make a show of the infirmities of 
the good and the great. The virtues so conspicuous in 
the saints of old, must not be forgotten. And yet, are 
here spots on the sun, though he illuminates the world. 



272 . THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Thus, of Noah, it is said, that he was perfect in his 
generation. It must, then, have been after he had out- 
lived his generation, that he drank of the wine and was 
drunken. Lot was inclined to be selfish and was, I 
think, a little slow in getting out of Sodom. Abraham, 
you know, prevaricated in the presence of Abimelech. 
Isaac was hardly sufficiently positive to be of any par- 
ticular use in the world. Jacob was a little too much 
like his mother to be strictly honest. Moses flew into 
a rage because of the hardness of the hearts of the chil- 
dren of Israel. Even Job, the most patient of men, 
murmured against Providence and wished he had never 
been born. David was guilty of adultery and murder. 
As to Solomon, the least said the soonest mended. 
Even Peter dissembled. John Mark was not perfectly 
reliable ; while Barnabas, because he was a relative, 
sympathized with him in his fickleness. Paul, himself, 
was hardly as respectful to the authorities on one occa- 
sion as he might have been. Hence, he who sets any 
one of these before him and works simply with reference 
to the example thus presented, must come short of the 
noblest result. His ideal is a low one and it is not 
likely that he will ever rise superior to it. The study of 
the artist should always be of the most elevated charac- 
ter, the most perfect combination of excellences possible, 
one for the production of which the highest power of 
genius has been brought into exercise, an embodiment 
not of one excellence only, but of all excellences com- 
bined and of all in the highest degree. Low models 
are the bane of art. The student whose aim is lofty, 
avoids them. He will not look at them. They degrade 
his ideals, they demoralize his taste. Certainly, then, 
should the study of the Christian, who aims at the high- 
est moral results be a perfect one, a combination of all 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 273 

moral excellences and all in the highest degree. But 
where shall such a combination of all moral excellences 
be found ? Has there then ever yet on this earth ap- 
peared, or in the presence of men unfolded, any single 
character embodying such a combination of these ex- 
cellences as that on it the eye of the Christian can con- 
fidently rest in the assured conviction that it is the sum 
and perfection of all. Yes, thank God, one such char- 
acter has existed on this earth, just one. Amid the 
hills of Judea it appeared, centuries ago, in Jesus of 
Nazareth, the son of Joseph, who, as he, with patience trod 
the path of obedience unto death, even the death of the 
cross, left us an example that we should follow his steps 
and to the world, a sublime summary of the whole duty 
of man in that simple utterance of his lips, ' ' Follow me." 

Christ, then, is the Christian's study. He is the 
only model worthy of imitation, the only example to be 
followed implicitly. From all others, the Christian 
turns away, on Him only does he fix his steadfast gaze. 
For in his life, more than in any other that has ever 
graced this earth, or in the presence of men unfolded, 
have the ideas and principles that go to make up a 
Christian character, been all gathered up and so com- 
bined and illustrated an intelligent apprehension of them 
is rendered, not only possible, but comparatively easy. 
In his life, I say, more than in any other, that has ever 
ennobled earth, or demonstrated the capability of our 
nature for great things, is there, presented to all men, 
and for all time, an example of moral excellence so com- 
plete, as all that may, with the utmost devotion, study it, 
and for a correspondence with it, labor continually and 
always without the least possible suspicion, that there is 
in the universe, aught of excellence besides, that is 
worthy their slightest anxious endeavor. 



274 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

The excellence of Christ's example then, its value to 
the Christian, as the source of instruction, is, that in 
it, the ideas and principles of Christianity, its life and 
spirit, its beauty, its symmetry, its power, are all per- 
fectly realized. He is Christianity embodied, the cen- 
ter, the soul of the system, the living exhibition of all 
it imports, and of all it requires. His life is no partial 
or limited exhibition of the graces of his religion, no 
exhibition of a fragmentary virtue, as was the life of 
Abraham or Moses. 

In the example of Christ, I find Christianity most 
compendiously exhibited, an epitome of all the virtues 
and of all the graces essential to Christian character. 
I find, indeed, scattered through all the Bible, as de- 
scriptively set forth these separate virtues and graces. 
I find here love and joy and peace, long-suffering, good- 
ness, gentleness, meekness, temperance and faith all 
separately portrayed. I find these virtues and graces 
separately and only partially exhibited in the individual 
saints whose lives are herein delineated. I find a little 
of Christianity in this one and a little in that one. I 
find faith in Abraham ; meekness in Moses; fidelity in 
Caleb ; courage in Joshua ; patience in Job ; devotion 
in David ; wisdom in Solomon ; fervor in Peter ; love 
in John ; but in Christ I find all in one. He only is 
" full of grace and truth." He is the full orbed sun of 
which these isolated virtues are but the scattered rays. 
He is the perfectly, rounded absolute. 

How essential, then, to a distinct apprehension of 
any specific Christian virtue, is the illustration of it as 
given in the life of Christ. We think we can distinguish 
pretty clearly what are called the Christian graces and 
know exactly what is meant, when anyone of them is 
mentioned or enjoined by the inspired writers. And, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 275 

yet, never, it seems to me, are we able to apprehend 
-distinctly anyone of these graces until we have referred 
it to Christ and seen how in His life it is embodied and 
exemplified. 

Not, however, that I would detract in the least from 
the beauty, simplicity or grace of that wonderful de- 
scription of love, as given by St. Paul, in the thirteenth 
chapter of I. Corinthians, a description, in all respects, 
perhaps, the most perfect of any that has ever yet been 
given of any single grace. See how he pictures it : 
" Charity surfereth long, and is kind ; charity envieth 
not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth 
not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not 
easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in in- 
iquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things. Charity never faileth." Was ever any single 
grace more accurately delineated, or more attractively 
presented? And, yet, were 1 really desirous of con- 
veying to your minds, a clear conception of this, the 
chief of all the graces, I would not linger long with 
Paul, but would make haste to fix, and fasten your gaze 
on that more wonderful exhibition of it, as given in the 
life and character of Jesus. I would take you to Beth- 
lehem, and in that Babe of the Virgin born, wrapped 
in swaddling clothes, lying there in His manger-cradle, 
let you see how love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
up. I would have you follow in the pathway of that 
Man of sorrows, as weary and footsore, He wandered, 
homeless and friendless, over the hills of Judea, feed- 
ing the hungry, healing the sick, instructing the ignor- 
ant, and in all possible ways, ministering to the wants 
of the suffering multitude, and let you see how "love 
seeketh not her own." I would show you that patient 



276 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

one, Who, when He was reviled, reviled not-again, as 
He endured, daily, the contradiction of sinners, against 
Himself, and though with power to have crushed them, 
with a word, still, forbearing to use that power, and let 
you see how love is not easily provoked, but suffereth 
long and is kind. I would take you to Pilate's judg- 
ment hall, and in that meek victim, standing there, the 
silent, unresisting victim of all hell's unappeasable hate, 
purple-robed, thorn-crowned, all lacerated and bleed- 
ing from cruel scourgings, mocked at, spit upon, let 
you see how love can bear all things. I would take you 
to Calvary*, and there, in that uncomplaining Sufferer, 
transfixed and quivering on the cross, abandoned by 
God, and insulted by men, let you see how love can en- 
dure ail things. And, standing there, I would have you 
catch, as they faintly rise amid the clamorings and the 
cursings of the murderous rabble, the touching accents 
of that last intercessory cry, piercing the heavens, 
"Father forgive them, for they know not what they 
do," and let you see, let you feel, unless your heart is 
made of stone, how love never faileth. I would give 
you, not simply an inspired description of love, but I 
would show you a life by love inspired. I would hold 
up before your eyes, until those eyes were filled with 
tears, and all the selfishness of your nature consumed 
away, love's purest embodiment, love's holiest, sublim- 
est example. I would let you see, not simply love's at- 
tributes, but love itself, not merely, however, as an 
idea, but as a reality, not simply as a thought, bright- 
ening on all the pages of the Bible, but as a living 
power, walking the earth, incarnate and suffering, as 
weeping over the miseries, and as dying for the life of 
the world. Thus does the Christian set Christ always 
before him, as the source of instruction, as one from 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 277 

Whose example he learns what it is to be a Christian. 

II. Not only, however, as the source of instruction 
does the Christian set Christ always before him, but, 
also, as the source of inspiration ; not only as the foun- 
tain of knowledge, but, also, as the fountain of power. 

The advantages accuring to the artist from his model 
is not simply in that it is to him the source of instruc- 
tion or of knowledge with respect to the ideas and prin- 
cipals of his art, but, also, and especially, in that it is 
to him the source of inspiration or of power whereby 
he is enabled to reproduce those ideas and principles 
in the results of his own toil. The mere knowledge of 
ideas and principles will never make a great master in 
any art. There may be lofty ideals without any power 
to realize them. No mere copyist can ever produce the 
highest style of workmanship. An insipid imitation he 
may produce, but a genuine result never. There must 
be inspiration. But while all true art is the result of 
inspiration, so also its mission is to inspire. There 
were indeed little value in any work or model of art did 
it not inspire. It might teach, but its teachings would 
do no good. Is it with a view to instruction simply 
that your walls are adorned with costly paintings and 
your lawns with elegant statuary, is it not with a view to 
inspiration as well ?" Is it not that every time your little 
boy looks at the painting on the wall, there shall come 
to his heart a quickening, elevating impulse ? It is 
hardly worth while for the poor student of art to save 
up his money and wear old clothes that he may travel 
away to Rome or Florence, if he is to come back with 
nothing but ideas and principles. As in those renowned 
cities he lingers amid the highest models of excellence, 
he must not only get the knowledge of the great ideas 
they embody, but feel also the kindlings of the enthu- 



278 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

siasm they are wont to inspire. He must bring back, 
not only ideas in his head, but inspiration in his heart, 
or he might as well stay at home. 

The need of inspiration in achieving the ordinary 
work and purpose of life, is something we all are con- 
scious of. What the world wants in every sphere and 
department of its activity, is certainly not less of 
knowledge, but more, a great deal more, of inspiration. 
Knowledge is good, but what avails it, where there is no 
impulse, in the direction of a practical using of .it, no 
kindling spirit, inducing the embodiment of it in legiti- 
mate results. Knowledge without inspiration, is indeed 
about the most useless thing I know of. It is the en- 
gine without the steam, the head without the heart. It 
is inspiration that puts the whole machinery of life in 
motion. It is this which lifts up the hands that hang 
down, and confirms the feeble knees. Any amount of 
activity in the world you say, of a certain kind I ad- 
mit, restlessness, disquietude, drudgery, no end of it. 
And yet, of all, how little, the result of a genuine in- 
inspiration. In the case of what multitudes of weary men 
and women, are all the fountains of inspiration sealed. 
Nor faith, nor hope, nor lofty aim, stimulates their ig 
noble toil. It is, I suppose, hardly possible, that we 
should always be at our best, or realize constantly, the 
maximum of energy of which we are capable. It 
would simply wear out the machine; sooner or later, 
there would be a collapse; there must, of necessity, be 
intervals of almost total inactivity. After great effort, 
reaction sets in. Nature sets us the example, for a few 
months, from spring to autumn, she throbs and pul- 
sates with life, and is seemingly doing her best. She 
is inspired. But, gradually, her forces abate, until, 
finally, she relapses into a state of cold indifference, and 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 279 

exhibits scarcely a sign that she is alive. We are never, 
for any length of time, in the same mood; our spirits 
ebb and flow, like the tide of the ocean, or stagnate, 
like the pool. We are one thing to-day, another, to- 
morrow, we are influenced by our surroundings, our 
company, the weather, it makes a difference whether the 
east or the west wind blows. The high or the low water 
mark, is dependent on the rains. One thing, however, 
is evident in all. Taking human nature at its average 
level of impulse and practical energy, it is a pretty tame 
affair. Apart from some inspiration, and the occasional 
upliftings, it thus experiences, it would soon die of 
drudgery, or wane into utter imbecility through disgust. 
Inertia, is our nature's characteristic mood. Its indol- 
ence is inherent. All its volitions and all its impulses, 
are artificial, manufactured. We are not, as we are 
acted upon. The Hottentot is the typical man. eH 
shows us what we are, in ourselves. We are like oxen, 
and throw ourselves into the yoke, and pull only as we 
are goaded on. What is called civilization, is but the 
result of the varied activities, produced and put forth, 
under the goadings of invisible masters. But the re- 
sult of the successive inspirations, that have from time 
to time, swept over humanity, kindling the hearts of 
men, bearing them hither and thither, in this direction, 
and in that. 

And, what I ask, do we, as Christians, just now 
most stand in need of ? Is it not inspiration ? Cer- 
tainly not less of thought, and idea for the intellect, 
but more, a great deal more of impulse and power for 
the heart. How many, with abundant knowledge of 
divine truth, with intelligence amply freighted with the 
ideas and principles of Christianity, as exemplified in 
Christ, the great model, we are, nevertheless, con- 



280 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

sciously inert, and comparatively powerless, with re- 
spect to the exhibition of a Christlike character How 
many, who have no heart for their calling, as Christians, 
goaded to duty, serving only for hire, under the scourge 
of the law. What they need, what we all need, is in- 
spiration, an inspiration that will strengthen us for our 
great work, for the doing and the suffering of the will 
of God ; that will support and steady us in the way of 
duty ; that will hold up our goings, and make lithesome 
our step in the weary life-march ; an inspiration of life, 
of courage, of power ; an inspiration that will stimu- 
late and sustain us, in our efforts to be good, in our ef- 
forts to be Christlike, in our efforts to reproduce and to 
exemplify, in our own lives, the life of Jesus, the life 
of our great Exemplar. Is there such an inspiration 
possible? If so, where shall we get it? To what 
source shall we apply? 

Now we all know very well, that there is any great 
example of excellence of any kind, something natur- 
ally tending to inspire the beholder with the disposition 
and the ability to conform to that example. This is a 
fact, amply illustrated in every day life. The example 
of one earnest, enterprising man, in a community, in- 
spires earnestness and enterprise in many others, in all, 
indeed, susceptible of her influence. It is said of cer- 
tain celebrated writers, that before attempting to com- 
pose anything themselves, they sit down and read sev- 
eral pages of some favorite author, this they do to 
catch inspiration, to stir up the latent gift that is in 
them. Many a man has attained eminence as a public 
speaker, through the inspiration kindled in his soul, as 
in his boyhood or youth, he listened with rapt emotion 
to the eloquence of some one or other of the great ora- 
tors, that were then moving the world. There is an 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. . 281 

inspiration in the example of a friend, that ofttimes 
sways us strangely, long after he is dead. There is an 
inspiration in great deeds. We feel the power of the 
example of the illustrious men, that have lived before 
us. Abraham and Moses, Paul and Peter, Luther and 
Melancthon, Calvin and Knox, Wesley and Whitefield, 
still walk the earth as living beings. Though dead, they 
are living, and in the hand of each, is a sceptre of 
power. From their example of heroism, of self-devo- 
tion, and of patient suffering, in the way of duty, many 
have gathered strength for the unfolding, and the ex- 
hibition of kindred virtues. Thus do the noble multi- 
ply themselves. They, through this example, beget in 
others a spirit kindred to their own. 

Can, then, the example of Christ be powerless in 
this world ? Could he come and live and die, live such 
a life, die such a death in this world and leave it dead 
as he found it ? Nay, the example of Christ inspires. 
And with a view to this result, does the Christian set 
Christ always before him. Others with inferior aims 
may indeed seek their inspiration elsewhere. The land- 
scape painter may stand on lofty hilltop and with rav- 
ished eye, trace in detail, the magnificent scenery out- 
spread before him, and catch his inspiration there. 
The poet may hold communion with nature in all her 
varied and multitudinous forms ; with her silence and 
with her songs, with her woods and waters, with her 
field and forests and balmy skies, and catch his inspira- 
tion there. The architect may travel into foreign lands, 
to London or to Rome, and lingering there entranced 
amid the shadows of St. Paul's or St. Peter's, catch his 
inspiration there. The warrior may ponder the pages 
of history, or on renowned battlefields with the shades 
of departed heroes, holding fellowship, catch his in- 

19 



282 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

spiration there. But we, my brethren, must go in an- 
other direction, to a loftier shrine. We must go to 
Jesus, and at His shrine, lingering, in the believing con- 
templation of His infinite perfections, catch our inspi- 
ration there. True, the Apostle would have us catch 
what of inspiration we can, from the example of all those 
who have lived and died in the faith. Thus, in the 12th 
chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, alluding to the 
multitude of the faithful who, in the ages past, had tri- 
umphed in the Christian race, and the names of many 
of whom he had mentioned in the chapter preceding, 
he says: "Wherefore, seeing we, also, are compassed 
about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside 
every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us 
and let us run with patience the race set before us." 
Let us, the Apostle would say, let us then think of all 
these, of the Patriarchs and Prophets, of the kings and 
priests and righteous men of all the ages past, who, 
having themselves successfully run the race of faith and 
obedience, are now, cloudlike, hanging over all our 
course, the deeply interested witnesses of our triumph 
or defeat, let us think of all these, and from their sub- 
lime example of patient running, gather what we can of 
inspiration and of power, of strength and of persever- 
ance for victory. And yet, well did the Apostle know 
that there is not in the example of all these witnesses 
combined, cloudlike though they be, inspiration suffi- 
cient to hold us steady in the race. We must look be- 
yond all these, lift our eyes to a higher and to a yet 
more influential source of inspiration and power. We 
must look, not to David, but to David's Lord ; not to 
Moses, but to Him of whom Moses in the law and the 
Prophets did write ; not to Abraham, but to Him whose 
day Abraham rejoiced to see, and he saw it and was 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 288 

glad. We must look to Jesus ; on Him, only, fix and 
fasten our gaze. " Looking," says the Apostle, ''Look- 
ing unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, 
who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the 
cross, despising the shame." "For consider Him who' 
endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, 
lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." This in- 
spiration is not wanting in many a loving heart to-day. 
It is the secret of the strength of many a patient burden- 
bearer, of whom the world is not worthy, the hidden 
source of the sublime fidelity of many an obscure toiler 
in the Master's vineyard. Oh, how many, in loneliness, 
in poverty, in sorrow, are now secretly struggling against 
temptation and for victory over self and the world, 
sustained only by the inspiration kindled in the devout 
contemplation of Him and of His great life, in all things 
so dutiful and so true. It is the inspiration of a new 
life, like an enchantment coming down upon humanity, 
from Jesus and His cross. There is, thank God, in- 
spiration at His shrine; thousands have felt it; the 
confessor in the dungeon; the martyr in the flames; 
Paul, with his head on the executioner's block. Under 
the glow of this inspiration is the soul of Christendom 
now mounting heavenward. It quickens ; it quickens 
a dead world ; it quickens you and me. 

In a sense greatly differing, however, from that in 
which the model is the source of inspiration to the artist 
is Christ the source of inspiration to the Christian. The 
inspiration which the artist gets from his model and 
which we gather from the example of great men, is, after 
all, simply a natural result, a mere inspiriting or quick- 
ening into higher activity, the native powers of the 
mind and heart. It is simply the influence of a motive 
acting upon natural susceptibilities, but does not in- 



284 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

volve the communication of anything positive to the 
soul. It comes through the power of natural vision, or 
of some of the organs of sense. It is not an actual im- 
partation to the soul of genius, or of native power, but, 
simply, a waking up of power, the kindling into a flame 
of what of the fire of genius may already be latent there. 
True, the inspiration which the Christian gathers from 
Christ, is all this. It is, first of all, the influence of a 
great example naturally exerted upon the susceptible 
soul. But it is infinitely more than this. It is an actual 
power. It is not a mere natural stimulant, acting upon 
the soul from without, but an impartation to the soul 
of something positive of what was not there before ; an 
actual infusion of the divinity of its life and power. 
The Christian sets Christ always before him by faith in 
all His offices, as his Prophet, Priest and King, and the 
inspiration he gets, is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
" Whose blessed unction from above 
Is comfort, life and fire of love." 

True, in the contemplation of the example of the 
great men that have lived before us, there is a sense in 
which it may be said that we catch their spirit. But in 
no real sense is this true. There can be no real com- 
munication of one man's soul to another in this way. 
But in the believing contemplation of Christ, there is a 
real, actual impartation of the very Spirit of Christ to 
the suceptible soul. 

Every Christian then is an inspired man. Not Isaiah, 
nor Jeremiah, nor Daniel, nor any of the Old Testament 
prophets, was so inspired. A holy man of God, he 
thinks and feels and speaks and acts only as he is moved 
of the Holy Ghost. Now of this deep inspiration, this 
marvelous indwelling Holy Ghost, what other than a 
Christlike character can be the result. That character 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 285 

is not something put on, not something built up exter- 
nally around the Christian, but the inevitable sponta- 
neous outgrowth and unfolding of an inward power of 
an indwelling Christ. Of all results then, a genuine 
Christian character is the most natural. It is not a 
forced mechanical result, wrought out against all incli- 
nation, with toilsome, soul-wearying effort, and infinite 
painstaking. It is not a mere copy, a laborious imita- 
tion of Christ's character mechanically executed. Do 
you find it difficult to be a Christian ? Then you are no 
Christian. It is not difficult to be an artist, with the 
soul of an artist in you. It is not difficult to sing, if 
there is any music in you. It is not difficult to be a 
poet, when you are born such. Christians are born, 
not made, born by a new celestial birth and they find it 
easy to be what they were born to be. It is not hard 
to be Christlike when Christ is to you, the abiding 
source of inspiration and of power, indeed it is impos- 
sible that you should be anything else. The difficulty 
is experienced only in the case of those who aim at a 
Christlike character in the absence of a Christlike spirit- 
The would-be artist may produce a picture or a statue 
in a mere mechanical way as a mere copyist, without 
inspiration, without genius or inward power. But what 
is it worth ? Simply nothing. What in art as in speech 
reaches the heart comes from the heart. We get tired 
of mere imitations. We want something fresh, original ; 
something that comes out of the soul of him that pro- 
duces it. Christ, thank God, has not set us on forming 
a Christian character mechanically. We are not mere 
copyists in the school of art, mere imitators of a great 
model without inspiration, without genius or inward 
power. Nay, we " have set the Lord always before us" 
and in His great example find the source of a perpetual 



286 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

inspiration. We have in us the very genius, the very- 
soul of Christ, the very spirit and life of the great Mas- 
ter whose work we copy. 

What a great thing it would be if that patient stu- 
dent of art, who has long been standing there and gaz- 
ing upon some grand old painting, trying to compre- 
hend somewhat of its idea and its power, that he might 
reproduce them in the results of his own skill ; what a 
grand thing, I say, it would be, if, while thus standing 
and gazing, he should all on a sudden be kindled with 
the very genius and inspired with the very soul of the 
great Master, whose work he contemplates, as if, for 
instance, while thus gazing on one of Michael Angelo's 
paintings, the soul of Angelo should suddenly leap into 
his soul. This were inspiration indeed. Michael An- 
gelo is reproduced in all his freshness, originality and 
power. Anybody could be a great painter in this way. 

But this is just what is realized by the student of 
Christ. Long, perchance, has he been standing there, 
wistfully gazing upon the image of Christ, the highest 
model of the moral excellence to which he would attain, 
saying, " O, that I could reproduce that image, realize 
in my own life that picture, those lines of beauty and 
of grace that so entrance my soul." Hitherto Christ 
has been to him only the source of instruction. He has 
been a diligent learner in the school of Christ and has, 
to some extent, at least, comprehended what is essen- 
tial to the great picture he is thus so intensely yearning 
to reproduce. He is filled with a sense of its surpass- 
ing loveliness, overwhelmed with the conception of its 
marvelous excellence. But alas, how to reproduce in 
the result of his own effort and endeavor, the excellence 
he so much admires he finds not. He toils, but toils in 
vain. He weeps over his failure, and vows that he will 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 287 

succeed, but weeps and vows to no avail, when, lo, sud- 
denly as once more, with tearful eye, surveying the di- 
vine portrayal as from the sacred page it stands out be- 
fore him, a strange impulse seizes his soul, a divine 
warmth pervades his heart, an unearthly fire kindles in 
his eye. What does it mean ? It means that the Spirit 
of the Master has entered his soul. He is an inspired 
man. He wakes to the consciousness of new power. 
Hitherto hidden resources of capability for conformity 
to the sublime model he contemplates, are now all at 
once revealed. Christ is reproduced ; His image re- 
alized. Christ is in him the hope of glory formed and 
the life of Christ he must unfold. 

Oh Thou great Teacher of the world, Thou Guide of 
the blind, and of them that are in darkness, Thou In- 
structor of the foolish, and teacher of babes, unveil 
Thyself to our dull apprehension to-day, and upon Thy 
matchless beauties so rivet our reluctant gaze as that 
earth, with all its deceitful charms shall so far away into 
the distance recede, as that its transient glories shall 
henceforth cease to delude and to mislead. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



W§z &o\mx iSuiltring. 

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down 
first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it ? 
Lest, haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to fin- 
ish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began 
to build, and was not able to finish. — Luke 14 ; 28, 29, 30. 

The most enviable character a man can assume 
on this world's stage, is that of a builder. Whether 
a child erecting his cob-house on the hearth-stone, 
or some grand master, his grim cathedral on its deeply 
laid foundations, the builder is always interesting, 
and always honorable. All great men, all good and 
true men are building, some in the material world, 
some in the immaterial. One man builds a house, 
another a book, the one arranges brick, the other, 
thought. Here a man is hewing granite, there another 
is carving intellect, but the work of each is excellent, 
and to the world's progress, indispensable. In all use- 
ful occupations, in all well directed effort, we are in 
some sort, builders. And, indeed, the man who does 
not build some sort of useful fabric, is himself, a use- 
less thing, and the only practical advantage the world 
can hope from him, is that when his indolent spirit shall 
have been summoned hence, his lifeless body, at least, 
will furnish occasion for the builders of graves and the 
builders of coffins to do their duty. 

To build, is godlike. God Himself is a builder, of 
288 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 289 

this universe, this awful dwelling place of being, the 
grand architect. His mighty hand laid its founda- 
tion, carved its pillars, arched its dome. And His law 
is that all that live in this universe, should be like Him 
and also build. The birds, the bees, the beavers build. 
The spider builds her gossamer bridge, over empty 
space, and the conies, though a feeble folk, build their 
houses in the rocks. And in harmony with nature's 
sublimest law, man should also build. And the man 
who disobeys this law, is like a stone in the channel of 
the stream of human progress, the only indication of 
his existence, is the ripple occasioned in that stream as 
it passes over him. 

But he who within the sphere of secular life, lays 
foundations, and on them piles up stones, cemented into 
wall, or buttress, or lofty tower, is but typical of him 
who builds within the sphere of a higher life, with ma- 
terials more enduring, with art more divine. 

For man is called upon to be a builder, not only in 
the material world, but, also, in the spiritual. Here the 
call is urgent, imperative. Fair indeed and beautiful 
as well as perfect were all things both in the natural and 
moral world when God, the supreme architect, pro- 
nounced them very good. But sin, an element of dis- 
integration and decay, was introduced. Suddenly, a 
sad change was wrought upon the myriad forms of 
strength and beauty that first lifted themselves into the 
light of their Maker's smile. The original character of 
man, the noblest structure of all, was laid in ruins — a 
temple, once the dwelling place of God, profaned — its 
glory departed, and all its magnificence decayed. Not 
only was it defaced, and of all its beauty dispoiled, but 
the very elements of which it was composed, dissevered 
and scattered beyond the power of any human hand to 



290 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

re-gather them. But God, in mercy interposing, and 
through the special agency of His Son, has so rescued 
from otherwise total oblivion these dissevered and scat- 
tered elements as that each man can, by availing him- 
self of the guiding light of His Spirit and Word, so dis- 
cern and appropriate them, as to build again the fallen 
edifice of his moral character, until, in more than na- 
tive majesty, it rise to greet the benedictions of a com- 
placent heaven. 

This, then, is the great work in which every man is 
called to engage. He is called to be a builder, the 
builder of a Christian character. The building up of 
such a character, through discipleship in the school of 
Christ, is the one grand result to the realization of 
which, his life-long efforts are to be directed. This is 
a result, involving not only the beginning of a Christian 
life, but also the continuance and the completion of it. 
The perfection of Christian discipleship, is the one great 
design which all that build in the spiritual world, must 
ever keep before them. . 

The result, as by the Saviour in the text indicated 
is called a tower : by which we are to understand, not 
only those ancient structures erected for the purposes 
of watch and war, but, also, as the commentators tell 
us, any lofty building, or collection of buildings, any 
large costly palace-like edifice requiring more than an 
ordinary outlay of means, in order to its completion. 

Now, he who has determined on the building up of 
a true Christian character, through a life devoted to 
Christ, is, by the Saviour, here compared to the man 
who intends to build such a tower. 

And, here, precisely as in the case of the tower 
builder, must the intention precede the act. A tower 
is not fortuitous or accidental ; so neither is a Christian 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 291 

character. It is a result pre-determined and fixed upon; 
that to which a man must, from the beginning, inten- 
tionally and with deliberate purpose, commit himself ; 
"which of you intending to build a tower." 

I admit, that in too many instances, character is not 
the result of any previously formed purpose or inten- 
tion, but simply spontaneous, the outgrowth of inherent 
forces, uncontrolled either by reason or volition. The 
man lives on, as lives a tree, and the one gets character, 
as the other gets verdure. There is about as little in- 
telligent control in the one case as in the other* In the 
building of a tower, a man will take care, but in the 
building of character, how few, comparatively, give 
themselves any concern. The result bespeaks their 
folly. The weakness, the instability, the deformity in 
human character, so often exhibited, are only what, in 
the absence of any intelligent volition controlling its 
development, might have been expected. Unplanned 
and purposeless, originating only under the force of all 
unguided appetites and misguided inclinations, it is im- 
possible but that such a character should be wholly 
wanting in all those nobler qualities that distinguish 
those which unfold, as a designed and pre-determined 
Tesult. Left to itself, uncontrolled by any intelligent 
exercise of the will, life clothes itself only with dishonor. 
Not in this way, however, originates the character of 
which the tower is the symbol. As with the tower, so 
with the Christian character; it must exist, first of all, 
in the intention. So the Saviour teaches, recognizing 
Christian discipleship as something to which a man 
must, from the beginning, deliberately commits himself, 
comparing the man thus committed, to the man who 
intends to build a tower. 

And here, also, as in the case of a tower builder, the 



292 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

design is a grand one and, as such, can only be realized 
at an immense cost. Christianity makes large demands 
upon the resources of its votaries. Hence, it is here 
compared by the Saviour to a tower, a costly edifice, 
as that which best illustrates it in this respect. The 
embodiment of its principles, spirit and power in human 
character, is completely exhaustive of that any man can 
presume to call his own. Hence, the most dangerous 
delusion, under which the mind of man can labor, is 
that such an embodiment can be realized at a trifling 
cost. It will strike with paralysis his entire being. 
Great excellence can only be secured at a great price.. 
A character, great in any sense, is a costly result, but a 
character, great in the Christian sense, inconceivably 
so. Whether the statesman's honor, the warrior's wreath 
or the poet's laurel, it is achieved only through a vast 
expenditure of time and toil. A character for wisdom 
and learning is impossible, except to him who bids for 
it at a desperate outlay of all the resources of his being. 
Hence, of the Christian's character, we dare not say 
that it, only, is a costless thing. 

Now, it is only a dictate of prudence and very essen- 
tial, as a condition of success, in the case of him who 
intends to produce any grand architectural result, that 
he, first of all, thoroughly estimate the cost of his under- 
taking. And it is simply the necessity of such a thor- 
ough counting of the cost, with a view to Christian dis- 
cipleship or the building again of the fallen edifice of 
our moral character, that the Saviour would here espe- 
cially insist upon. He would have no man enter upon 
this great work of reconstruction inconsiderately, or 
without previous thoughtfulness and careful comparison 
of his actual resources, with the demands of his great 
project. He would have us fully understand that, he 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 293 

who has determined on a Christian character, a char- 
acter such as God's Word requires, must, if he would 
spare himself the reproach consequent upon ultimate 
failure, go about his work intelligently, in a business- 
'like way, must begin by honestly estimating the expense, 
by seriously asking, what will such a character cost? 

What it costs to be a Christian, can never be re- 
garded a useless, or presumptuous inquiry. Cost and 
profit are considerations that enter very largely into the 
affairs of ordinary life, and are not to be ignored when 
we approach the subject of religion. This sitting down 
first, then, and counting the cost, is simply illustrative 
•of that deep thoughtfulness, appropriate to, and which 
should ever precede any great undertaking, and, which, 
as referring to the achievement of a Christian char- 
acter, is directly opposed to all rash, and unpremedi- 
dated undertaking of this great work, to all blind, im- 
pulsive, self-confident, rushing upon this great business 
of Christian discipleship. Had that young man of the 
gospel, who came running to the Saviour, saying, 
' ' Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal 
life ? " Had he, I say, but previously counted the cost 
of discipleship, it is doubtful, indeed, whether he would 
have come at all, at least he would hardly have come 
running, but having come, he never would have gone 
away sorrowful. 

This forecasting, then, of the cost, incident to the 
attainment of a perfected Christian character, through 
a life devoted to Christ, is, indeed, a very-business-like 
process. For, just as the builder in wood and stone 
sitteth down first, and with pencil in hand, takes an es- 
timate of what his proposed building will cost, so must 
the builder of this great spiritual superstructure, a Chris- 
tian character, begin by honestly estimating its expense. 



294 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Referring to his Bible, wherein he will find distinctly 
presented the plan and specifications of his intended 
building, let him proceed to set down item after item, 
deliberately, conscientiously. And, 

i. So much in the way of .labor. A Christian char- 
acter will cost much in this particular. It will not spring 
into being at the bidding of indolence. It cannot be 
conjured into existence, by the wand of the magician, 
but comes, if it come at all, obedient to the summons, 
and as a glorious testimony to the potency of industry 
and toil. We cannot dream ourselves into heaven. 

I remember once, to have read the story of Allad- 
din's lamp, found by the indolent boy, in a mysterious 
cave, and by means of which its fortunate possessor 
was relieved of the necessity of labor, as by it he was 
enabled, at will, to summon into his presence, and sub- 
ordinate to his purposes, invisible powers, who, as his 
slaves, stood in waiting, to do his bidding. Such, in- 
deed, was the power of the possessor of this wonderful 
lamp, as that in a single night he called into being a 
most gorgeous palace, built of the most rare and costly 
materials, with spacious halls and domes and walls of 
massy wedges of polished gold and silver, laid alter- 
nately, and windows decorated with priceless jewels of 
every description, and offices all complete in every part, 
the whole supplied with the most sumptuous furniture, 
and a treasury filled to the very ceiling with bags of 
money. 

Here, then, was a most gorgeous fabric, on which 
the hand of toil had never rested, unbaptized and un- 
consecrated by the sweat of labor. But, alas, it existed 
only in the world of fiction ; a creation of the fancy ; 
an extravagant dream, to which nothing, in fact, can 
ever correspond. Not such as this, however, is the re- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 295 

suit proposed by him who builds in the spiritual world. 
The edifice of the Christian's character is indeed a su- 
pernatural result, and infinitely more magnificent than 
is this fabulous product of the wonderful lamp. Nev 
ertheless, it is not the result of enchantment, but a 
reality, and as such, the creature of persistent labor 
and unresting toil. It rises not, at a word or a wish, 
but at the sterner bidding of work and will. True, 
there must be, in order to its production, the use of a 
mystic lamp, but it is the lamp of truth, the lamp of 
God's Word. Without this lamp we build in vain, yet 
with it only with difficulty. By the potent virtues of this 
mysterious lamp, we may indeed summon into our pres- 
ence, and subordinate to our purposes the invisible pow- 
ers, but it brings under our control, no agency, whose 
willing hands will supersede the necessity of our own 
earnest and indefatigable exertions. 

Now it is evident that he who builds must labor, he 
must labor to secure a knowledge of the fittest materials 
for the edifice he intends to build, and especially is this 
the case with him who builds in the spiritual world, who 
rears again the fallen edifice of his moral character. 
He must, I say, labor to acquire a knowledge of the 
elements of which that character is composed. Igno 
ranee of these elements has been to many, the occasion 
of terrible loss, if not absolute failure, and, he, who at- 
tempts the formation of a Christian character, while in- 
dolently neglecting to acquire a knowledge of the ele- 
ments of which such a character is the combination and 
the result, gives to the world a far greater exhibition of 
folly than would he who should attempt to build a pal- 
ace for a King, without any previous knowledge of the 
materials required in order to such a structure. 

But if the knowledge of the elements of which the 



296 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

edifice of our Christian character is to be constructed, 
is so essential, the question arises, Whence is this knowl- 
edge to be derived ? I answer from the Word of God. 
For, in this Word, we not only find these elements dis- 
tinctly designated, but, also, so amply described and 
forcibly illustrated, as that none can possibly fail of the 
clearest apprehension of them, who will but honestly ap- 
ply his powers with a view to this result. True, these 
elements do not force themselves upon the recognition 
of any. They are discernible only by the industrious 
student, hanging over the sacred page, as though his life 
depended on it, eluding the perception of the indolent 
and the superficial. And, especially does St. Peter in- 
dulge in a distinct and lively summary of these important 
elements the mere naming which, however, does not 
imply that we really know anything about them. He 
begins with faith, as that which holds to Christ, and, as 
such, lies at the base of all and ends with charity as that 
which allies us with heaven and is the crown and per- 
fection of all. "And, beside this, giving all diligence, 
add to your faith virtue ; and to virtue knbwledge • and 
to knowledge temperance ; and to temperance patience ; 
and to patience godliness ; and to godliness brotherly 
kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity." Such, 
then, are the elements out of which the majestic edifice 
of our moral character is to be constructed, such the 
materials of that great spiritual superstructure, to the 
building of which all life's labors are to be subordi- 
nated. True, these elements have already found beau- 
tiful and symmetrical embodiment in many a noble 
structure now rising to gladden the eye. Nevertheless, 
he that would know them thoroughly and so as to be 
able readily to distinguish them from the false and glit- 
tering imitations by which so many are deluded to their 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 297 

undoing, must seek that knowledge from the Word of 
God. Hence, but little reliance can be placed in the 
stability of the Christian character of the man who is 
not a conscientious student of the Bible. He may, in- 
deed, be building and building even on Christ, the true 
foundation ; but he is just as likely to build on that 
foundation hay, wood or stubble, as gold or silver or 
precious stones. This Paul anticipates. For, though 
primarily, his reference is to teachers, his words have in 
them something for us all. 

e< According to the grace of God which is given 
unto me, as a wise master builder," he says, "I have 
laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon. But 
let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon." 
Let him see to it that upon this foundation he build the 
right kind of materials. Let him see to it that the edi- 
fice of his Christian character be not composed of hay, 
wood and stubble, but of gold and silver and precious 
stones, for the day cometh in which it shall be tried by 
fire. "And the fire shall try every man's work, of 
what sort it is, that is, whether it be perishable, such 
as hay, wood and stubble, or imperishable, such as gold 
and silver and precious stones. And, if in that day of 
the fiery trial, any man's work abide, he shall receive a 
reward, but if any man's work shall be burned, he shall 
suffer loss. All his work shall go for nothing, shall be 
rejected, though he, himself, if only he has built on 
Christ, the Imperishable Foundation, shall be saved, 
yet so as by fire. And how many are they who are now 
building only of the perishable, of wood, hay and stub- 
ble, when they ought to be building of the imperishable, 
of gold and silver and precious stones. And, though 
in secular life, such ignorance were scarcely credible, 

yet here they seem not to know the difference between 

20 



298 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the destructible and the indestructible, and even deem 
the one as appropriate to their building as the other. 
Hence, the structure they rear, is comparatively unre- 
liable and frail; more like a reed shaken with the wind 
than like a tower, steady and stern, amid the heavings 
of the earthquake, or, if in any sense a tower, it is a 
tower of straw and not of stone. Their building, it is 
true, may rest on the only sure Foundation, on the 
Eternal Rock, Christ Jesus, but, alas, how incongruous 
many of the elements of which it is composed. They 
have, perchance, the simple faith that unites to Christ 
and saves the soul; so much, at least, is imperishable. 
But, with this, there is a sad admixture of all sorts of 
foreign elements, alien principles, and consequent mis- 
directed effort, all of which, unrecognized and unre- 
warded, will utterly perish amid the testing fires of the 
last day. For the most part, Christian character is a 
sad thing to look at, presenting, as it does, in so many 
instances, such a heedless combination of frail, ill- 
sorted materials. Are these the structures that are to 
lift themselves, unscathed and unconsumed, amid the 
conflagration of the universe ? These haphazard, has- 
tily gotten up results, can they be eternal? How little 
of real labor has ever been expended on them? Their 
builders shrink from work. They will not go down 
deep into the mine of truth, where the gold and the sil- 
ver and the precious stones lie embedded and there, by 
main strength, heave up the mighty superincumbent 
masses that hide these imperishable elements from the 
common gaze. They will not dig for wisdom as for hid 
treasure, but with strange and hurtful indifference, lay 
hold upon the hay, wood and stubble, such materials as 
the surface presents and thus, without labor, build, but 
also, alas, without a reward. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 299 

But he who builds, must labor, not only thus, to se- 
cure a knowledge of the fittest materials for the edifice 
he intends to produce, but also perfectly to understand 
the design or model in accordance with which he pro- 
poses to build. A man may have the knowledge of 
materials, he may know their value, strength and ap- 
propriateness, yet all this will avail him little, unless he 
thoroughly comprehend the design or model of the edi- 
fice he aims to produce. The builder must know not 
only wherewith to build, but also what to build. He- 
must know how to arrange his materials symmetrically 
and so to combine them as to produce the desired ef- 
fect. But the acquisition of this knowledge will cost 
him much in the way of labor, whether he propose to 
originate his own design, or simply to reproduce, in his 
result, the product of some other mind. 

But it is the glory of the Bible that not only are all 
the elements of a Christian's character therein dis- 
tinctly presented, but, also, a perfect model in which 
these elements are all gathered up and embodied and 
so combined and arranged, as that they become to all 
that build in the spiritual world, the source of perpetual 
guidance and inspiration. That perfect model is Christ. 
His character, combining all excellence, is that to which 
all who would build successfully, in the spiritual world, 
must ever look. This model must be studied ; must, as 
far as possible, be comprehended ; must be fixed in the 
mind ; must be stamped on the heart. Nothing of finite 
excellence must be permitted, even for a moment, to 
supplant Him in our vision. Here, then, is labor in- 
dispensable, but from which the indolent builders turn 
away. But, unless you wish the edifice of your Chris- 
tian character to be all disfigured and disproportioned, 
without beauty, without strength, without symmetry, 



300 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

without power, you must keep your eye on Christ. "I 
have set the Lord always before me," says David. 
''Looking unto Jesus," says Paul. I see the glorious 
structure of his character rising up from the fair fields 
of inspiration, combining all excellence, all grandeur, 
all perfection ; its foundation laid in the depths of a by- 
gone eternity and its summit all heights transcending ; 
reaching far away into the limitless and the unknown. 
I see, gathering around it, ravished of its beauty the 
multidudes of the celestial, saints and angels gazing en- 
tranced. I see the builders of all ages, patriarchs and 
prophets, apostles and martyrs, a throng innumerable 
gathering around it, gazing at it, waiting to catch the 
inspiration by which they also build. While far on the 
outskirts of that admiring throng, I also, a poor humble 
•builder, stand, reverently surveying that excellence unto 
which I may eternally approximate, but never fully at- 
tain. And, as in the contemplation of that marvelous 
structure, there gathers upon my soul the weight of its 
wondrous and indescribable power, my eye traces, as 
carved upon its serene frontal in letters of light, these 
simple words : "Follow Me." 

But he who builds, must labor, not only to acquire 
a knowledge of appropriate materials and a thorough 
comprehension of his design, but, also, to combine 
and arrange in an actual structure, those materials in 
accordance with that design. The true builder is such, 
not in theory only, but also in fact, bringing into actual 
service, all the varied implements of his art, with 
square and level and plumb, laying the foundation, and 
on that with mallet and trowel, adjusting stone to stone. 
Building is a practical thing, involving not only the 
labor of the head, but, also, of the hands. It cannot 
be accomplished without brain, but it is equally impossi- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 301 

ble without muscle. There must not only be a search- 
ing after and a finding of materials, but, also, a build- 
ing of them up into forms of strength and beauty, 
not only a discovering and a selecting of the stones in 
the quarry, but, also, a lifting of them up into their al- 
loted positions, until in temple or in tower, they are 
exhibited in grand symmetrical combination. 

There are not wanting, those who build grandly 
their ideal structures, their invisible air castles. They 
sketch magnificently, in imagination, their splendid 
edifices of wood and stone. They discourse eloquently 
of materials and are forever originating and studying 
designs. But they shrink from anything practical, 
from any attempt at so combining and arranging ma- 
terials, as to produce an actual result. He is no true 
builder, whose life is wasted in the studying of models, 
in the mere sketching of magnificent designs. So he, 
who builds again the fallen edifice of his moral charac- 
ter, must remember that it is a result, not only to be 
conceived of in the mind, but actually realized in the 
life, that it is a practical undertaking, in which he is 
engaged, and one, in order to the consummation of 
which, there is not only much to be known, but also 
much to be done. A Christian character, then, will 
cost much, in this respect, in the way of labor, in the 
way of earnest, downright, practical effort. 

But the cost incident to the building again of the 
fallen edifice of our moral character, is not included in 
this single item of labor. But he who would thoroughly 
estimate the cost of this great undertaking, must pro- 
ceed to set down so much also in the way of sacrifice. 
How great the cost, in this respect, is evident from the 
fact that all that a man hath, must needs be absorbed in 
he result. Accordingly, at the very threshold of the 



302 THE VOICE OU1 OF THE CLOUD. 

Christian's life, is he confronted with the stern exac- 
tion, "Go and sell that thou hast." The Christian 
character is a building so immense, so all-embracing as 
that in order to its completion, there must be an invest- 
ment of all that any man can presume to call his own, 
a sacrifice in spirit, at least, of all his possessions. 
"So, likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh 
not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." And, 
the necessity of such a complete surrender and subordi- 
nation of all things to the one great purpose of erecting 
the building of Christian discipleship, is the explicit 
teaching of the Saviour in the words immediately pre- 
ceding the text. Turning to the vacillating multitudes, 
coming after him in the way, thronging his path, he 
rebukes their thoughtless precipitancy, and test severely 
their attatchment to himself, by sternly announcing, as 
a condition essential to the perfection of Christian dis- 
cipleship, the hating of friends and of life itself. "If 
a man come unto Me and hate not his father and mother 
and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, 
and his own life, also, he cannot be My disciple." As 
though the Saviour had said, "This you may as well 
understand first as last, I would not deceive you. I 
announce plainly the conditions. Can you comply 
with them ?" "Whether or not, you may as well, now,, 
at the very outset, determine, for which of you intend- 
ing to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth 
the cost ?" But what is this hating of friend and of 
life even, here so imperatively demanded by the Saviour ? 
It is in the very lowest and most superficial sense the 
holding of them in such complete subordination to the 
claims of Christian discipleship, as that they shall not 
be permitted to interfere therewith. It implies, evi- 
dently, a determination on our part to meet those 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 303 

claims, though it be at the sacrifice of them all. It 
is such a disposition of the heart, as will yield anything, 
and all things, rather than that Christian character 
should be, in any respect, compromised. It is the 
mighty outspoken resolve of the soul, that the spiritual 
tower shall go up at whatever cost or outlay, even 
though around its base should lie scattered the wreck 
of every earthly hope, and the last and crowning stone 
of the edifice be purchased only with the last drop of 
our life blood. And, to the man thus persistently urg- 
ing on the building up of his Christian character, occa- 
sions will not unfrequently present themselves demand- 
ing the most extraordinary sacrifice. Sometimes, in 
order to the completion of his great work, it will be 
necessary to cut off the right hand and to pluck out the 
right eye. It will be necessary, at all times, to forego 
all selfish gratifications, to make no provisions for the 
flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof, to walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit ; to abstain from the very ap- 
pearance of evil ; to forsake all ungodly and unprofita- 
ble associations ; to crush out of his heart the spirit of 
the world and under his feet its unhallowed customs. 
He is committed soul and body, heart and hand, to a 
great work, an immortal enterprise, the building of a 
spiritual tower, and, though the heart may bleed at 
every pore and the shrinking flesh complain, he must 
not, he dare not, pause till it is done. 

Such, then, is but a partial estimate of the expense 
of that great spiritual superstructure, that mystic tower, 
to the building of which each one of us is called to de- 
vote his powers. It is a costly result. If in the case 
of any man it is otherwise, I pronounce it in his case 
worthless. You may, indeed, be building cheaply with- 
out labor, without sacrifice ; but alas, it is also without 



304 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

a reward. Your inglorious fabric will tremble and 
break in the blast of adversity and in the testing fires 
of the judgment be entirely consumed away. Nay, if 
you would build worthily, you must invest largely, how 
largely you must in the spirit of a wise and unprejudiced 
calculation solemnly inquire. 

Such, then, the business-like process to which every 
man who proposes to build in the spiritual world, is 
called by the Saviour. " For which of you intending 
to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the 
cost. " 

Now, this counting of the cost, may be induced by 
two considerations : And, first, a man may count the 
cost of any undertaking simply with a view to the profit 
which will accrue to him from its completion, in order 
simply to determine whether the advantages resulting 
from it when done, will compensate and thus justify the 
expense incurred in its prosecution. 

But, whether a Christian character will compensate 
and thus justify the immense outlay of toil and sacrifice 
incident to its attainment is not, it seems to me, a 
question which yet remains to be determined. The 
calculation has long since been made and with results 
most gratifying. Paul was not a man wont to invest 
his means in doubtful speculations. At one time he 
thought himself very rich, the richest man in all the 
land, a sort of millionaire, in the possession of all natu- 
ral and acquired advantages. And, yet, the prospect 
of still greater advantages through the investment of all 
he had in a certain line of action, presents itself. He 
begins at once to calculate, to count the cost, with a 
view to the profit that would accrue to him from the in- 
vestment. He takes an inventory of his wealth. "If 
any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 305 

trust in the flesh, I more : Circumcised the eighth day 
of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an He- 
brew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee ; 
concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the 
righteousness which is in the law blameless." Will it 
pay to surrender all this ? This is the question. The 
result he gives us. " But what things " he says, " were 
gain to me, those I counted for Christ. Yea, doubt- 
less, and I count all things but lost for the excellency 
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I 
have suffered the loss of all things." Amid bonds and 
imprisonments Paul patiently wrought out the mighty 
problem and his conclusion settles the question for- 
ever. " Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
promise of the life, that now is and of that which is to 
come." I admit, indeed, that the investment required, 
is fearfully exhaustive, and one which, in order to make, 
a man must have a heroic spirit and strong faith in the 
outcome. Houses and lands friends, ease, reputation 
and life itself, all must go into the result, into the build- 
ing of this spiritual tower. But thank God all this ex- 
penses, however exhaustive, bears no comparison to the 
advantages accruing to us from its completion. In the 
completed edifice we find again all that we lost in order 
to its erection. " He that loses his life, for my sake," 
says the Saviour, " shall find it." 

A Christian character, then, the highest type of a 
re-constructed manhood, at whatever cost originated, 
will, inevitably, compensate. It is here compared by 
the Saviour to a tower, a grand architectural result, in 
which the force of the highest genius of man culminates 
and is doubtless so compared, because of its great ad- 
vantages, its many and varied excellencies. A tower 
for beauty is the Christian character. The embodi- 



306 THE VOICE OU1 OF THE CLOUD. 

ment of a divine conception, the realization of a di- 
vine idea, it stands all radiant in light supernal, in the 
beauty of holiness, to men and angels a perpetual ex- 
hibition of the graces of the one altogether lovely. A 
tower for strength is the Christian character, a strong 
tower ; a massive combination of all the virtues, an un- 
yielding, impregnable fortress, against which no assault 
can prevail. A tower for conspicuousness is the Chris- 
tian character, a column of light seen from afar re- 
flecting forever and away out into the uncheered spaces, 
the splendors of the sunny heavens. A tower for dura- 
bility is the Christian character ! of all structures the 
last to decay, impervious alike to the tooth of time and 
the sweep of the conflagration ; in grandeur, in statli- 
ness and in serenity, maintaining its place amid the 
falling down and the wasting away of the frail fabrics 
reared at its base. And who that can look upon this 
noble structure, this spiritual tower, as thus out of the 
ruins of the fall, it rises heavenward, a thing of beauty, 
symmetry and power, and still doubt whether it were 
better to build or not to build. 

" Certainly, " says one, "this is no longer a ques- 
tion. It is a most desirable result. I will strive to 
realize it. I have made up my mind to build." Yes, 
my friend, a most desirable result; yet, oh, how costly. 
Here, then, another consideration summons you to a 
counting of the cost. It is no longer a question of 
profit, advantage or compensation, but of resources. 
Have you the ability to meet the expense? Doubtless 
the building will compensate, but have you wherewith 
to build? Have you, in the language of the Saviour, 
sufficient to finish it? "Ah, let me see," you say; "I 
must make a little calculation." 

And, first, so much in the way of labor; in the way 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 307 

•of labor, to secure a knowledge of the fittest materials 
for the kind of building I intend to produce ; in the way 
of labor, to secure a thorough comprehension of the 
great design or model, in accordance with which I intend 
to build; in the way of labor, to embody in an actual 
structure, those materials in accordance with this design. 

But to all this expense in the way of labor, must be 
added so much also, in the way of sacrifice. And, 
here, must go into the estimate, the inevitable, houses, 
and lands and friends, and life itself. All must be sac- 
rificed, a complete unlimited surrender. Oh, how im- 
mense the cost ! No, I, for one, am conscious that I 
have not sufficient to finish it. The difficulties to be 
encountered and conquered are too great. I have 
neither heart enough, no courage for so great a venture. 
True, my friend, I know you have not. And it is to 
bring you to this conviction, and to this confession, that 
that the Saviour would here have you, first of all, 
count the cost. He would bring you face to face 
with the severe requirements involved in the great 
undertaking, that in the light of these requirements, 
you may see just how poor you are ; how helpless; 
how utterly resourceless ; that you may know that 
in yourself, simply, is no power to meet these require- 
ments, but you say, "I know and feel my inability, 
and shall, therefore, not attempt to build." Nay, my 
friend, remember that however much it may cost you 
to build, it will cost you much more not to build. It 
can only cost you your own sinful, fleshly life to build, 
but not to build will cost you life eternal. "He that 
findeth his life, says Christ, "shall lose it, and he that 
loseth his life for My sake, shall find it." It costs 
much to be a Christian, but infinitely more not to be a 
Christian. Here, then, you are shut up to the neces- 



308 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

sity of building, yet, having nothing wherewith to build. 
You must build or be homeless, unsheltered and tem- 
pest-beaten forever, and yet without resources, how can 
this be done ? " Really," you say, " My condition is a 
sad one." True, if you are looking only to yourself. 
But once thoroughly convinced of the magnitude of the 
undertaking, and of your own inability to accomplish 
it, it is your privilege to seek the aid of Almighty 
Power, as in the case of him who said to the Saviour, 
" Lord I believe, help Thou my belief." Yes, thank 
God, there are for every honest builder, resources be- 
yond himself, resources as infinite as God, and as 
boundless as eternity. These are the resources of the 
Divine Spirit, as ever available, as they are abundant 
and inexhaustible. "For, which of you, intending to 
build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the 
cost." Now, in such a previous counting of the cost 
as is here required by the Saviour, do we recognize the 
great condition, indispensable to a successful building 
in the spiritual world. For, in compliance with this 
condition only, can we be certainly and fully prepared 
for any and every emergency that may arise in the 
prosecution of the great work to which we are com- 
mitted, and thus escape the mortification and the dis- 
grace consequent upon a complete failure. I say mor- 
tification. For, certainly, a failure to accomplish that 
in which so many others have so eminently succeeded, 
must ever be attended with feelings of self degradation. 
To see, all around him, either the rising, or the already 
completed towers of those, who, with himself, com- 
menced the work of building, and his own, but a mere 
heap of unsightly ruins, cannot fail to produce in the 
mind of that man, not totally dead to the feeling of 
self respect, a most painful consciousness of unmanly 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 309 

imbecility. Besides, how deep the disgrace consequent 
upon a failure to succeed in this great enterprise. 
" Lest, haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is 
notable to finish it." It is not foundations, simply, the 
-world wants, but superstructures ; not beginnings, but 
completions ; not attempts, but achievements. It is 
very exacting. It wants somthing done. If, by a hair's 
breadth short of what was attempted, the effort, instead 
of being commended, is simply commiserated or ridi- 
culed and chronicled as only one more additional to the 
long list of failures. "And all that pass by, begin to 
mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was 
not able to finish." Yes, he was going to be a Chris- 
tian, and this is what has come of it. "A building left 
unfinished," says one, "provokes men to mockery, as 
does every abortive effort of will without power. It 
betrays a lack of prudence in a previous counting of 
the cost. It is only the complete and decided Chris- 
tian that commands the respect of the world. But the 
world is quick to indemnify itself on those who ars 
only half Christians, those who visibly give up the ob- 
ject they aimed at. The savorless salt is trodden under 
their feet, the half finished tower provokes their scorn." 

Alas, what a countless multitude of these half finished 
towers now stand like mournful sentinels along the bord- 
ers of our distracted Zion to mark the folly of their build- 
ers, while infidelity stands laughing aloud at their failure, 
vainly striving with the very materials of which these 
unsightly heaps are composed, to demolish those that 
have already reached completion. These are the mon- 
uments of the folly of those who began to build without 
first coming to an understanding with themselves, with- 
out first counting the cost, "who have, indeed, a desire 
to distinguish themselves from the world, but show no, 



310 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

power to vanquish it." Good, indeed, may have been 
the foundation, higher and still higher may have risen 
the graceful and well balanced superstructure, until it 
had well nigh reached the heavens ; when lo, in order 
to complete the work the builder was called upon to 
meet some unexpected and unprovided for expense ; to 
make some sacrifice he had never counted upon; to cut 
off some right hand, to pluck out some right eye. He 
hesitated, the tower trembled, he utterly refused and lo, 
apostacy, damning, Judas-like failure, is now written 
where once glowed in letters of light ; ' 1 Holiness to the 
Lord. " 

I have heard, indeed, of the ruins of ancient cities, 
of proud vessels stranded on ocean's dreary shore, I 
have seen depicted as in letters of blood the horrors of 
the battlefield, stood upon the mounds of its decayed 
fortifications, and sadly gazed upon the fading grandeur 
of earth, waning like the last light of departing day from 
her temples and towers. But what are all these ruins, 
compared with the ruins of virtue, what is all this wreck, 
compared with the wreck of heaven-born hope and 
blighted immortality ? Well might the inexpressible 
grief occasioned in the susceptible soul by such a calam- 
ity seek to find some alleviation of its intensity in the 
lamentation of Jeremiah, " Oh, that my head were 
waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might 
weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my 
people." 

Now, all this can only be certainly avoided by a 
previous counting of the cost. For then, and then 
only, shall we have engaged in the work of building 
understandingly and with the whole heart. Then, and 
then only, shall we have pledged ourselves to persever- 
ance from the outset. Then, and then only, shall we, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 311 

in the spirit of a perfect consecration, have laid the 
foundation of the intended edifice and be prepared, in 
the same spirit, to meet every emergency, and at what- 
ever cost, to prosecute to ultimate completion, the great 
undertaking. 

One word, only, in conclusion, to that humble archi- 
tect who, in great poverty of spirit and through many 
discouragements, is still prosecuting, to ultimate com- 
pletion, the building up of his Christian character. The 
edifice you are thus laboring to complete, may, indeed, 
go up but slowly. The years have come and gone, • 
through all of which you have wrought upon it, ofttimes, 
it may be, with discouraged heart, but, never for a mo- 
ment, thank God, have the implements of labor fallen 
from your hands. The circumstances under which you 
build may be most unpropitious. You may have many 
and great difficulties to encounter and overcome. It 
may be in the dead of winter that you are building, out 
on the unsheltered heath, pierced by the pitiless wind, 
exposed to the peltings of the storm. Surrounded by 
enemies, who would, by circumventing your endeavors, 
retard your work, you may, like those who built the 
walls of Jerusalem, in troublous times, be compelled to 
hold the trowel in one hand and the weapon of defense 
in the other. You may be isolated, building without 
sympathy and without companionship. Then you may 
often find that you have not built of the right materials 
and be compelled to pull down and build again. Then, 
again, you may sometimes feel that all your resources 
are exhausted in the building, that you are so impover- 
ished, as that you have not left you means sufficient to 
buy a single brick, nor strength remaining to quarry 
another stone. Sometimes, indeed, it may seem as 
though the work had altogether ceased and the hissing 



312 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. • 

and the jeering of the passers-by, anticipating your fail- 
ure, fill you with dismay. Still, however slowly, and 
through whatever discouragements the work goes on, 
you began it, not as an experiment, not as'an amuse- 
ment merely, but as a thing to be done. To its incip- 
iency you brought a stern heart, and to its prosecution 
a determined hand. 

Build on, then, thou noble god-like architect, build 
on. By industrious and unwearied effort thou shalt 
succeed at last. Already thy tower reaches well nigh 
into the heavens. Already the light of glory is resting 
on it. Already, with garlands of immortality, the angels 
wait to wreath it. And, when, at last, thy work on 
earth is done, thou shalt lay down thy trowel and thy 
soiled vestments, with all the implements of toil, and 
take thy place amid the royal builders, who, having 
completed their day's labor, are now resting — aye rest- 
ing — and forever participating in the refreshments made 
ready for them in that eternal city, that "city which 
hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God." 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Etyz ©rnuus of tt)e ai^rt^ttan iJUltgfon. 

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of 
love and of a sound mind. II. Tim. i. 8. 

Religion is a term frequently used and ought to be 
universally understood. That which the term imports, 
is not by any means a thing of yesterday, but old as the 
creation. It has its basis in the nature of man, and has 
even been in some form of its manifestation the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of his being. Present and 
controlling in the dawning consciousness of the race, 
it has been the burden of all the centuries, for more 
than eighteen hundred years, especially, agitating our 
world, laying under contribution to its unfolding, the 
noblest activities' human and divine. It is a term de- 
scriptive of all that is moral in our nature, whether of 
sentiment or of feeling, of its spiritual impulses and ten- 
dencies, comprehensive indeed, of the faith and hope 
and destiny of our humanity in all the ages, and in every 
hemisphere. Hence, in the more extended application 
of the term, it assumes a meaning as vast and as varied, 
as are the forms in which have found expression the 
inwrought instinctive aspirations of the soul of man for 
the infinite and eternal. 

It is, however, the religion of the Bible and of the 
Christian, with which we especially have to do, and yet 
with that religion, not as an idea or as a doctrine simply, 
but as a determination under special divine influences, 

313 21 



314 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

of the whole soul of its possessor in the direction of 
God and heaven. And though with sorrow it must be 
confessed that unholy and designing men, have not un- 
frequently by perverting this gracious boon into an in- 
strument for their own aggrandizement, subjected it to 
ill-grounded suspicions and unmerited abuse, yet here 
as ever, it must be remembered that the dispensations 
of God's grace, like those of his providence are not to 
be judged of by their perversions, but by their original 
and genuine tendencies. For notwithstanding the dese- 
crations of the sinister and the self-seeking, it has al- 
ways been found, that wherever this religion exists in 
its purity and exerts its influence directly, unperverted 
by human hope or human policy, it demonstrates its 
claim to divinity unmistakably, by ameliorations and 
reforms multitudinous and radical, throwing the light 
and loveliness of heaven over the otherwise dark and 
forbidding scenes of earth. It not only influences 
favorably the whole character and condition of its votary 
considered as a creature of time, calling into exercise 
the noblest faculties and affections of his being, but 
comprehensive of his need as the heir of a higher des- 
tiny, it opens up the vista of the future and plants the 
star of hope on the broad bosom of eternity. It not 
only brightens with its presence the whole pilgrimage 
of life, and with a heavenly ray illumes a dying bed, 
but casting a halo of glory around the coffined remnants 
of mortality it points upward to the skies, telling man, 
weeping, suffering, dying man, that beyond the tomb 
there is a resurrection and a heaven. 

An adequate confirmation of these views we have in 
the words of the Apostle, indicating as they do, the 
very nature, the very genius of the Christian religion as 
existing in, and as influencing the soul of its possessor 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 315 

" For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of 
power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 

A spirit, a spirit given us of God. Such then is the 
Christian religion as existing in, and as influencing the 
soul of its possessor. And yet it is not the Spirit of 
God exactly, nor yet man's spirit simply, but that rather 
which is born of them, that peculiar moral bent, tem- 
perament or disposition of mind and heart, consequent 
upon the union and concurrent action of both, that is 
in the text represented as the spirit given us of God. 
It is the Old Testament promise realized. " And a new 
spirit," that is a new temper, a new disposition, "will 
I put within you." It is that for which the Psalmist 
prays, "Renew a right spirit within me," that of which 
the Saviour speaks, " That which is born of the Spirit, 
is spirit." Such then is the Christian religion. It is a 
spirit, a new spirit, a right spirit, a spirit born of Spirit, 
the spiritual product of a spiritual" power, a flame of 
celestial ardors, of which the soul of man is fuel and 
the Spirit of God the kindling spark. In other words, 
the Christian religion is a pure and lofty action, a divine 
and sacred impulse, which by the Holy Ghost com- 
municated to the soul of man, is ever revealing itself 
in the attributes of power, love, and a sound mind. 
And it is in these attributes that the real nature, the 
very genius of this religion is evinced, the temper of this 
holy flame manifested. 

And in these attributes especially, is the genius of 
the Christian religion exhibited as essentially remedial. 
It is a great remedial impulse mysteriously lodged in 
the human soul, quickening what in that soul is dead, 
strengthening what is weak, elevating what is low, libera- 
ting what is bound, illuminating what is dark, with a 
tendency in the direction of the good, counteracting its 



316 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

tendency in the direction of the bad. It is, I think, dis- 
tinctively characteristic of the Christian religion and 
ought, it seems to me, to be set down to its credit, even 
by its enemies, that its whole influence is elevating that 
whatever it touches it re-creates, ennobles, and beauti- 
fies, that its mighty trend is ever upward, always in a 
direction the very reverse of that in which the nature 
of man, left to itself inevitably gravitates. 

Now this remedial elevating tendency of the Chris- 
tian religion is evident, especially from its more posi- 
tive attributes of power, love and a sound mind. 

The Apostle here, however, before all else takes a 
negative view of this religion, telling us what it is not, 
firmly maintaining that it is not the spirit of fear. From 
the genius of the Christian religion then we must with 
the Apostle proceed first of all carefully to eliminate 
this depressing element, "For God has not given us the 
spirit of fear. " 

The Christian religion then is not a spirit of fear, 
pusillanimous cowardly. It is not a spirit that is afraid. 
It is not afraid of anything but sin. It is not a spirit 
that is afraid of itself or that by busying itself with 
other things and with other people, tries to evade the 
knowledge of itself or of its own deformities. It is 
not a spirit that is afraid to face the consequences of its 
own acts or that does a mean thing and then, in the 
name of religion or by some other cowardly subterfuge 
tries to justify it and to escape the condemnation it de- 
serves. It is not a spirit that is afraid of the truth, or 
shuts its eyes to the all-searching light of God's Spirit 
and Word. It is not a spirit that is afraid to speak the 
truth, or that hesitates to link its destinies with it, though 
on its suffering way to Calvary and to the cross. It is 
not a spirit that is afraid to take sides with the right, or 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 317 

to stand by it in its severest trial, in its bitterest conflict 
in the face of persecution, and the world's contumely 
and scorn. It is not a spirit that is afraid to cry out 
against all littleness and meanness and perfidy and 
wrong doing and time serving aquiescence in the howl 
and cant of a godless multitude. It is not a spirit that 
is afraid to suffer with Christ and for His cause or to go 
down with Daniel into the lions' den, or with the three 
Hebrew children to tread the seven-fold heated furnace 
of fire, or with Stephen to stand in the presence of a 
hypocritical Sanhedrin of the elect, who, for the good 
of the Church, piously stones him to death. It is not 
a spirit which, while living in a comfortable home of its 
own, squirms and twists and is afraid to squeeze out a 
dollar now and then for the cause of God and the 
Church which He purchased with His own blood, or 
which, when that dollar is given, looks after it with 
longing eyes as just so much taken from the gratifica- 
tion of its own lusts. Nay, the spirit of the Christian 
religion is not a spirit of fear. 

In too many instances, I know, has the religion of 
the Bible and of the Christian been sadly misappre- 
hended, stigmatized, indeed, as a spirit of fear, as a sort 
of servile, cowardly, cringing thing, filling the mind with 
dark forebodings, and the heart with guilty horrors. 
With far too many the supposition is that its influence 
is depressing, that it takes all life and buoyancy out of 
the soul, and governs its votary by a perpetual appre- 
hension of impending danger. It is, however, the very 
reverse of this. It is a lofty spirit with all noble aspira- 
tions uplifting, with all broad and generous sympathies 
expanding the soul that fosters it, "an inspiration of 
moral greatness and magnanimity, the breathings of 
courage, independence and self-respect." Instead of 



318 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

depressing fear, it kindles high resolves, instead of guilty 
tremors, heroic ardors. It is no mean, timid, disheart- 
ening thing, despoiling its votary of his intrepidity and 
manhood, but a joyous, exultant spirit, lifting the soul 
out of all littleness into all greatness and into a conse- 
quent superiority to all the vicissitudes of time and the 
perturbations of mortality. 

Is there, then, no fear in the Christian religion ? 
Are we not commanded to "serve the Lord with fear, 
and rejoice with trembling, to have grace whereby we 
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly 
fear " ? He, however, has gone but a little way in the 
experience of divine things, who needs to be told that in 
all such Scriptures it is not the ignoble sentiment of the 
guilty or of the craven-spirited that is indicated, but 
that of the child rather, reverently cautious not to grieve 
the heart of the parent, between whom and itself, exist 
relations the most loving and confidential. It were, 
indeed, most disingenuous thus to identify with the 
forebodings of the criminal, or the tremors of the slave, 
that glad, ennobling restraint which a sense of the in- 
finite love displayed in his pardon must ever impose 
upon the child of God. Of any slavish, tormenting 
fear, the Christian religion, as such, knows nothing. It 
scorns a sentiment so disquieting, so debilitating, so 
abject. "For God hath not given us the spirit of 
fear." 

To some, however, this may seem but a slight recom- 
mendation of the Christian religion, inasmuch as fearless- 
ness can hardly be said to be distinctly characteristic of 
its votary. True, this absence of fear in the case of the 
Christian were in no respect different from or superior to 
that stupid obliviousness to danger superinduced by un- 
belief, and which is so frequently characteristic of the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 319 

men of the world. By too many, indeed, is insensibility 
mistaken for fearlessness, and recklessness for intre- 
pidity. Left to himself, man is, I admit, morally fear- 
less, dreadless of consequences where he has most rea- 
son to be in perpetual alarm. " There is no fear of 
God before his eyes." His, however, is not the fear- 
lessness produced by innocence and the consciousness of 
safety, but that rather produced by ignorance of danger, 
and total insensibility to the precarious ground he occu- 
pies. By him no danger is suspected, hence none is 
feared. Very different, however, from all this is the fear- 
lessness by the Christian religion inspired. It practices 
no deception upon its votaries, holds out no false or 
nattering lights, never deludes with seemings or with 
subterfuges. The fearlessness it inspires is no counter- 
feit. It is not the result of ignorance or of self deception 
originating an unnatural apathy or guilty torpor of the 
soul, but something genuine, positive and real, originat- 
ing in the assured confidence of a spirit by no means obliv- 
ious to danger, yet fully certified as to the strength of its 
position and the invulnerable character of all its defenses. 

By inspiring sense of inherent greatness does the 
Christian religion inspire fearlessness. By reminding 
its possessor of the grandeur of his origin, of the magnifi- 
cence of his endowments, of the illimitableness of his 
destiny and of his consequent alliance with the unseen 
and the eternal, it inspires him with a sublime con- 
sciousness of his infinite superiority to the seen and the 
temporal, and with a sort of majestic scorn of all finite 
attempts to invade his quiet or to disturb his repose. 
It teaches its votary in every disheartening hour to fall 
back upon the infinite treasures of his own redeemed 
nature, and thus planted solidly on the vantage ground 
of his own immortality, to spurn intimidation and fear, 



320 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

saying to him, ''Who art thou — endowed as thou art, 
with a greatness in the presence of which the material 
universe sinks into insignificance — -who art thou, that 
thou shouldst be afraid." 

•By inspiring the consciousness of innocence does 
the Christian religion inspire fearlessness. It whispers 
pardon, thus imparting a sense of security. Its possessor 
at peace with his God, with himself, and with all man- 
kind dreads a collision with none. With innocence 
deeply pavilioned in the sanctuary of his heart, he smiles 
undaunted amid the ruins of hope and the wreck of 
worlds. " Hearkening unto the voice of wisdom, he 
dwells in safety and is quiet from the fear of evil. He 
shall not be afraid of evil tidings, his heart is fixed 
trusting in the Lord." 

By inspiring the consciousness of the divine sym- 
pathy and care, does the Christian religion inspire fear- 
lessness. How does the Psalmist, exulting in this con- 
sciousness, defy his foes, disdaining fear. "The Lord 
is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear, the 
Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be 
afraid?" The fearlessness of the Christian, then, is a 
stability of soul, born of an unfaltering trust in God 
and in His providential care. Feeling himself a child 
of God, he knows his Father will protect him. Though 
ofttimes like a wearied mariner, long tossed on stormy 
seas, still he confidently reposes in the ship of his for- 
tunes, knowing that God is at the helm. Amid all dis- 
cords and all alarms, incident to the fierce conflict of 
human passions, and the restlessness of a world scorched 
and maddened by the fire of its hot ambition, he stands 
superior, serene, calmly saying : 

" I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities 
A still and quiet conscience." 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 321 

But especially would the Apostle here distinguish the 
genius or spirit of the Christian religion from that of 
the law — the genius of the New Covenant from that of 
the Old. The spirit of the law, as characteristic of the 
Old Covenant, is an enslaving spirit, as the Apostle 
tells us, the spirit of Sinai, which engendereth to bond- 
age, and is, consequently, to all that receive it a spirit of 
fear. All this the Apostle amply illustrates in the sev- 
enth chapter of his epistle to the Romans, by a refer- 
ence to the operations of the law, as experienced by 
the individual in the progress of the unfolding of the 
spiritual life in the soul. He there shows how the man 
who receives only the spirit of the law is in bondage to 
sin. It is to him a terrible light, penetrating his soul, 
pervading it, filling it only with the consciousness of 
sin, and the fear of its penalty. A mighty struggle en- 
sues. In this struggle the whole energy o.f his being is 
concentrated. He will throw off the burdens that op- 
press him and grasp the liberty for which he sighs. But 
he struggles in vain. He finds that he is a slave, in the 
law's strong grip, held a helpless prisoner. His chains 
tighten, his resolution falters, his sense of danger in- 
creases, perturbation and alarm seize him, his despair 
is absolute, his degradation complete. In the bitter- 
ness of its anguish his spirit weeps, and chafing the fet- 
ters that enthrall it, utters its sorrowful plaint in the 
penitent's touching soliloquy as recorded by Paul, 
shrieking its despair in that last note of agony, "O 
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death ? " 

Such, then, is the spirit of the law, the spirit of Sinai 
symbolized in the lightnings that wreathed it, in the 
blackness, and darkness, and tempests, that invested it, 
a spirit of bondage, and, consequently, to all that re- 



322 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ceive it, a spirit of fear. An unfeeling taskmaster, it 
binds heavy burdens upon the souls of men, grievous 
burdens of guilt and grief and shame, which it gives no 
power to roll away, no power to bear. "By the law 
is the knowledge of sin. It forces sin to show itself." 
Thus originating consciousness of sin, it originates fear. 
For sin and fear, are in the economy of God, eternally 
linked together. From a condemned and affrighted 
Adam, fleeing amid the bowers of Paradise, from the 
voice and reproving presence of the Lord God, down to 
the unsaved millions of the last day, who, skulking amid 
the scattered fragments of a dismantled universe, shall 
to the rocks and mountains, shriek their alarm, crying, 
"Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sit- 
teth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb/' 
the consciousness of sin, and the fear of its penalty 
are inseparably conjoined. 

Such, however, is not the spirit of the Christian 
religion. It is not, by any means, that merely legal 
spirit of the Old Dispensation, sin- revealing, sin-con- 
demning, producing only a painful consciousness of 
guilt, and the dread of penalty, yet powerless to take 
away the one, or to secure exemption from the other, 
but it is the filial, loving, confidential spirit of the new 
and the better dispensation. Thus the Apostle, con- 
trasting these two spirits, the spirit of the law and 
the spirit of the gospel congratulates the believers at 
Rome, upon their deliverance from the one, and their 
participation in the other. " For ye have not received;" 
he says, "the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have 
received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba 
Father.'''' Its representative is not Sinai, the mount that 
might not be touched, and that burned with fire in the 
Arabian desert, lifting into the heavens, its verdureless 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 323 

summit, cloud-invested, and lightning-wreathed, inspir- 
ing only an insupportable dread, but Mount Zion, the 
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, with its 
festal company of angels and congregation of the first 
born, in the soul of the believer, inspiring only confi- 
dence and joy. 

The Christian religion then, is not a spirit of fear, 
timid, disheartening, dwarfing the soul of its possessor, 
and within a world, somber and forbidding, limiting the 
range of its powers, but a spirit, joyous, exultant, 
•claiming the freedom of the universe and eternity, the 
•sphere of its activity. It manifests itself heroically. 
Its very genius is fearlessness. "God," says Mr. Wes- 
ley, "has not called us to fear and tremble, like devils, 
but to rejoice and love, like angels." 

Forth from Eden's sacred bowers, in close compan- 
ionship with the dejected representatives of our race, 
went simultaneously with the first promise, the spirit of 
•a new covenant, and a new hope, even the spirit of 
the Christian religion. For four thousand years, an- 
ticipating its highest manifestation, in the marvelous 
Man of Galilee, did this spirit hover compassionately 
over the pathway of humanity, the inspiration of sus- 
ceptible hearts, in all ages, with the fervors of immor- 
tality, thrilling and strengthening them for another, and 
yet another heroic endeavor, in their prolonged, and 
yet ever victorious . struggle with the spirit of evil, 
which, engendering fear, would have paralyzed their 
energies and enslaved them forever. Wherever this 
■spirit touched a man, it transformed him, scattering 
his fears, dissolving his fetters, lifting him at once into 
the ranks of the immortals. It touched Able, and he 
died for God. It touched Enoch, and he walked with 
<God. It touched Noah, and for a hundred and twenty 



324 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

years, he wrought for God, in sublime contempt of the 
world's ridicule and scorn. It is not afraid. 

To this spirit has been given a voice, freighted es- 
pecially with two little words of marvelous power. 
" Fear not." These are the words with which it has- 
inspirited and led on to successive triumphs, the mili- 
tant hosts, of all ages, the form in which the very ge- 
nius of this spirit has bodied itself, and which as a 
grand rallying cry, emphasized in the depths of the 
listening soul, has kindled unconquerable resolves, pre- 
saging victory in every battle. Forty centuries since,, 
and amid the gloom of the densest night, of his moral 
conflict, was wafted upon the soul of the solitary Pa- 
triarch, a vision of brightness out of which he heard, 
coming down to him over the plains of Mamre, the 
voice of this spirit, saying, "Fear not, Abram, I am 
thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." This 
spirit's voice, since that day, thrilling upon the ear of 
many a lone defender of the right, has nerved his soul 
with loftiest daring, and all-conquering might, whether 
in the lions' den, or in the furnace of fire, or on the 
stormy Mediterranean, by the fierce Euroclydon driven, 
whispering ever, "Fear not, for thy defence is sure," 
When in the great arena of conflict, confronting the 
enemies of God, and His truth to blind unbelief, the 
issue of the contest seems doubtful, and through all the 
ranks of the faithful, begins to prevail the spirit of de- 
spondency, then are the hands that hang down, lifted 
up, the feeble knees confirmed, as above the din of the 
strife, is heard the voice of this dauntless spirit saying, 
"Fear not, nor be dismayed by reason of this great 
multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's." 

It is a dreadless spirit breathing constancy and 
courage under all circumstances in every condition of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 325 

life and in every form of death fortifying the soul of its 
possessor with the encouraging assurance of an unfail- 
ing support, saying : "Fear not for I am with thee, be 
not dismayed for I am thy God." With words of cheer 
and condescending grace it says to its tried and tempted 
adherents of every age, "Fear not little flock, for it is 
your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom," 
and then, in proof and in pledge of that good pleasure, 
pointing to the cross all stained with hallowed blood, it 
declares : "He that spared not His own Son but deliv- 
ered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him 
freely give us all things. " Or, finally, does the Christian 
stand on the banks of the turbulent Jordan of death 
shrinking as its cold waters touch his unsandalled feet, 
does his heart become intimidated as he listens to the 
wailing of its waters and beholds its foam-crested bil- 
lows as they dash the distant shore ? Then this spirit, 
hovering near and in the person of Him Whose death 
made its mission possible, places its right hand upon 
his head, saying : "Fear not, for I am the first and the 
last. I am He that liveth and was dead, and, behold, 
I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of 
hell and of death." 

It is, however, in its more positive attributes of 
power, love and a sound mind, that the real genius of 
the Christian religion is evinced, its remedial, elevating 
tendency demonstrated. 

And how, in this character especially, as a great 
remedial impulse, as a mighty counter current, setting 
in from invisible heights, withstanding and turning back 
our nature's rapid tide, do we delight to recognize the 
Christian religion. For where is the eye that gathers 
not a tear, or the heart that throbs not in sadness, in the 
contemplation of the ruins of the fall. Who, without 



326 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

deepest emotion, can yield to the conviction that the 
ruin is general, the catastrophe universal, the blight 
total. That no department of our nature is exempt 
from the melancholy effects of sin ; that the will of all 
is enervated and rendered powerless ; that the affections 
of all are perverted and estranged from God and heaven; 
that the understanding of all is darkened through unbe- 
lief, and alienated from the truth ; in a word that the 
whole structure of our moral being is subverted by the 
destroyer, its very foundations shattered, and the pil- 
lars of its strength decayed. 

How delightful, then, to turn away from reflections 
so disheartening to the contemplation of the Christian 
religion, as a great remedial impulse, as a special agency 
of God for the rebuilding of this once noble structure, 
and for the re-investing of it in all its native strength 
and grandeur, whose peculiar office it is to remedy all 
the imperfections of our ruined nature, enthroning itself 
therein, as a spirit of power, to strenghen our enfeebled 
will, as a spirit of love, to purify and exalt our depraved 
and perverted affections, and as the spirit of a sound 
mind, to heal our diseased, and to enlighten our dark- 
ened understandings. " For God hath not given us the 
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound 
mind. " 

First of all, then, is the Christian religion a spirit of 
power. Power is one of its distinguishing characteristics. 
This the apostle affirms concerning it, and as such 
has it gone forth into this world of ours. It is a spirit 
of supernal, supernatural power, " power from on high. " 
"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost 
is come upon you." Ever since the first lighting down 
of this Spirit upon our humanity, on the day of Pente- 
cost, has it demonstrated itself to be a spirit of power. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 327 

In this spirit do we recognize the only efficient world 
conserving, world-uplifting agency, the primal source, 
indeed, of all true civilization, and of all progress that 
is worthy the name. 

What was this world of ours before this spirit's power 
touched its heart? What was it before the Pentecost? 
A seething mass of putrefaction and death, a world 
spiritually dead and, as a consequence, dead in every 
other respect. But the Christian religion is a life- 
giving spirit, a spirit of soul-quickening power. It 
quickens a dead world. Its touch has revivified, and 
thus re-invigorated the race. Communicating to hu- 
manity a new life, it communicates to it a new impulse, 
thus lifting it up, and carrying it forward, irresistibly, 
in the line of its divinely appointed destiny. 

But I have no time to trace the history of this won- 
der-working spirit, from the day in which it was, in its 
fullness, first imparted to our humanity, to the present, 
or I might tell you how, even then, in the dewy fresh- 
ness of its youth, it demonstrated its divinity and its 
power, encountering fearlessly and conquering glori- 
ously, the opposing spirits of error and of all ungodli- 
ness, wresting from their sordid grasp, and to its own 
dominion subjecting, the very territory over which they 
had so long exercised disastrous control. I might tell 
you how, even then, it wrought, on a single day, the 
conversion of three thousand souls, triumphed over the 
machinations of councils, supplanted the wisdom of 
Corinth, subverted Diana of the Ephesians and, in spite 
of bigotry and hierarchal rage, continued to triumph 
gloriously, achieving victories sublime over the empire 
of darkness, until, at last, over the heads of its enemies 
it lifted itself into the very throne of the Caesars. I 
might tell you how, now, for more than eighteen hun- 



328 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

dred years, this spirit has walked this earth in majesty, 
plying sublimest efforts for the good of man, while be- 
fore its resistless, adventurous energy, opposition has 
quailed and difficulties have vanished away. I might 
tell you how, under the controllings of this spirit, hu- 
manity has wrought for God, how its resources of heart 
and brain and muscle have been developed, and to His 
glory consecrated, and to the purposes of His grace 
rendered tributary in the conquest of the world. I 
might tell you how the practical genius of the race has 
been evoked and, with all its ingenuity and wealth of 
invention and of enterprise, as exhibited in ten thou- 
sand nameless appliances, laid under contribution by 
this spirit, to extend over land and over sea, the evi- 
dences of its all-conquering might and ever-widening 
reign. I might go on to tell you how, in the progress 
of this spirit through the centuries, it has shaken con- 
tinents, as well as human hearts, from their lethargy, 
how it has dotted the earth with churches, and schools, 
and hospitals, and asylums, and missionary stations and 
won, by its vital ministries, myriads of its population 
to the cross of the Redeemer, and thence conducted 
them in safety to the portals of glory. But I have no 
time for all this. Enough to know that the very genius 
of the Christian religion is power. 

As in the experience of the individual realized, it is, 
first of all, an inspiration of sin-conquering power. It 
strengthens the enfeebled will in stern resolve to assert 
itself, with moral energy endows the soul, re-invests it 
with inward sovereignty, and with all kingly prerogatives, 
thus enabling its votary not only to see and to approve 
the good, but also to perform and do. 

"Power into strengthless souls it speaks, 
And life into the dead." 



I 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 329 

It transforms the imbecile into a giant, with the 
infinite clothes the finite, and from all debasing thralls, 
liberating the groaning spirit, empowers it to shake off 
its sins, even as the breath of the tempest, the rain 
drops from the leaves of the forest. The joyful procla- 
mation of liberty and of spiritual emancipation to the 
oppressed and groaning millions of our race, its voice 
responsive to the cry of penitence, and answering to the 
yearnings of an evangelical faith always is, "Sin shall 
not have dominion over you. " Power over sin is essen- 
tial to the Christian religion; it cannot exist without it. 
Take away this and all its beauty dissolves, its lustre 
vanishes even as do the colors of the rainbow when the 
sun is set. For it is this that gives reality to the Chris- 
tian religion and invests this magnificent arch of prom- 
ise and hope, in tangible and abiding glory. "Whoso- 
ever is born of God doth not commit sin." Child of 
God, then, whoever thou art, still thy name is "Victor." 
For in this sacred arena of Christian conflict, through 
which, for ages past, has reverberated the shout of vic- 
tory, even babes in Christ have grappled with princi- 
palities and powers and come off more than conquerors. 
Endowed with inward vigor and strength of holy pur- 
pose, they have walked erect in the furnace of afflic- 
tion and in the quiet dignity of their unbroken spirits 
braved the world's contumely and scorn. 

But, in the soul of its possessor, is the Christian re- 
ligion realized as an inspiration, also, of death-conquer- 
ing power. It is a power conquering not only sin, but 
also, ultimately, in the case of the believer, all the effects 
of sin. It not only puts to rout the enemy, but repairs, 
ultimately, all the damages that mark the track of the in- 
vader. Itmay notexempt, just now, even thebeliever from 
many of the effects of sin, but never fails to give strength 

22 



380 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

patiently to bear them. Even with respect to physical 
death, the most dreaded and the most formidable of all 
the melancholy effects of sin, the Christian religion is a 
complete and never-failing remedy. This I affirm on 
the basis of an evidence that can never be invalidated. 
It is no assumption, it is a matter of fact. You may 
say the facts are to the contrary. Does not the Chris- 
tian die? In seeming, he does; yet, in reality, he does 
not. What means the Saviour when He says, "Verily 
I say unto you, If a man keep my sayings he shall 
never die?" "The sting of death is sin." Hence, 
conquering sin, religion conquers death. So, in Paul, 
girded with the strength and inspired by the hope 
of his religion, he walks fearlessly forth, until now 
we see him standing away out yonder on the far- 
thest verge of the promontory of time. To him it is 
a Pisgah. The heavenly Canaan is in the distance. 
The Jordan rolls between. But no clouds are in the 
sky. No mists obscure his vision. No faltering is in his 
speech betraying indecision. Nay, but with all the 
calmness inspired of certainty, he exclaims, "For to 
me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. For I am in a 
strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be 
with Christ, which is far better." 

It matters not to whom death comes, or in what 
garb, it finds in this religion a power to rob it of its 
sting and to transform its skeleton features into a harm- 
less shadow. Come, it may, to the youthful Christian, 
or to the man of years, it matters not, it shall not find 
him unprepared. In the consciousness of the strength 
of victory, he forebodes no evil. Casting an undaunted 
eye upon death's broken dart, and upon the tomb's riven 
bolt, he exultingly exclaims, " O, death, where is thy 
sting, and where is thy victory, boasting grave," 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 331 

while the shout of his triumph, borne aloft from 
his death bed of glory, is caught upon the lips of 
bending seraphs and echoed back in the thunder of a 
myriad voices, "The sting of death is sin, and the 
strength of sin is the law, but thanks be unto God, 
which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

Death, then, is not an unconquerable foe. I have 
witnessed its most stealthy and appalling approaches, 
and trembled as I have beheld its relentless invasions 
of the citadel of life and hope. I have seen the Chris- 
tian dying, dying with every form of fatal malady, 
wasted by slow consumptions, scorched by burning fe- 
vers, eaten by lingering cancers, oppressed by remedi- 
less dropsies, yet, here too, have I seen him triumphant, 
here too, have I seen religion, the brightest and fairest 
of the angels of light, hovering near, shedding a glory 
overall the sick bed, by the gentle magic of it its smile, 
extracting the sting of death, cheering the heart's last 
throbbings, with the soft whispers of divine approbations 
and love. 

But into this world of ours has the Christian 
religion gone forth not only as a spirit of power, 
but also as a spirit of love. "For God hath not 
given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of 
love." And in this, in that it is a spirit of love, is the 
secret of its marvelous power. For, notwithstanding, 
owing to divine light, to will, may be present with us, 
yet, owing to the force of alienated affection how to 
perform that which is good, we find not, until God gives 
us the spirit of love to purify our affections, thereby 
radically and permanently changing the ground of all 
our determinations. Why is it, that the will of the na- 
tural man is so powerless, so utterly imbecile with re- 



232 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

spect to any good? Why is it, that though he repeat- 
edly resolves on amendment, he so uniformly succumbs 
in the presence of temptation and sin? Is it not sim- 
ply, because his will is so completely the slave of his 
depraved and perverted affections, his evil appetites, 
passions and desires ? But it is just here that the Chris- 
tian religion, as the spirit of love, comes to the rescue. 
As such it sanctifies the affections, thus liberating and 
strengthening, the otherwise enslaved and enfeebled 
will, thereby enabling its votary not only to see and to 
appreciate the good, but also to*perform and do. It is 
not a question, it seems to me, as to whether the affec- 
tions of the natural human heart, need to be purified, 
for it is evident that these affections are all depraved, 
perverted, estranged from God and heaven. Their 
trend is earthward. They cling to idols. They cling 
to the dust. They have no affinity with the skies, no 
attractions beyond the boundaries of time. No object 
set on the distant shore of immortality, tempts their 
blinded vision, or allures them thitherward. . In all 
their tendencies, recreant and gross, they grovel in the 
dust, listless of the voices that summon them away from 
the guilty pleasures of earth, to the fruition of celestial 
joys. 

But the affections of the unregenerate heart are not 
only thus sadly perverted in their tendencies, estranged 
from God and heaven, but essentially depraved, not 
only in their tendency wrong, but in their nature vile, 
not only without aspirations for the heavenly, but 
earthly, sensual, devilish. How, then, shall the embit- 
tered soul of man be recovered from its depravity, its 
vagrant affections arrested and centered again upon 
their appropriate object? Powerless here all the sys- 
tems of philosophy and religion by human ingenuity 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 333 

devised. Nay, for as they cannot impart power, so 
neither can they impart love. As they cannot rescue 
our nature from bondage, so neither can they retrieve 
it from depravity. As they cannot open the prison doors 
to them that are bound, so neither can they heal the 
broken-hearted. Can maxims of philosophy quicken 
a dead world ? Sufficient, then, the passing shadow of an 
empty cloud to vivify and cause to bloom again the 
parched and famine-stricken land. Can all the resources 
of heathenism restore to its normal relations the soul 
estranged from God, or tune again to harmony its dis- 
cordant affections ? Then, indeed, may the demon of 
discord quiet with a word the raging storm, or with a 
breath smooth the ridged bosom of the tempest-worried 
ocean, Nay, these systems, whether of philosophy or 
of religion, present no remedy for the obdurate, no 
hope for the bleeding heart, no balm for the recovery, 
no leaves for the healing of the nations. 

What is wanted, then, is the infusion into the heart 
of some positive element supplanting therein the element 
of depravity. What is wanted is an infusion of pure 
and holy love, but the Christian religion is the spirit of 
love, permeating the heart and purifying all its affec- 
tions. Silently disengaging those affections from the 
things which are upon the earth it fixes them upon the 
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right 
hand of God. With practiced hand it touches and re-ad- 
justs each jarring chord, and skilfully gathering up the 
wayward wandering tendrils of the human heart, gently, 
yet firmly entwines them around the throne of God. 
Here, then, that unceasing strife hitherto experienced as 
existing between the will and the affections is forever 
ended. Henceforth, harmonized by love, they dwell 
together in unity. Purity and heavenward tendency are 



334 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

now given to the affections, elasticity and promptitude 
to the will, while in their combined activity the soul is 
filled with the consciousness of a sublime harmony, and 
realizing in all its force and in all its fullness, the senti- 
ment of the poet, exclaims : 

" My passions hold a pleasing reign, 
While love inspires my breast ; 
Love, the divinest of the train 
The sovereign of the rest." 

The Christian religion then, is a spirit of love. 
True, it is power, yet, not reckless and uncontrolled, 
not a wild, arbitrary, but a kindly power, exerted not 
selfishly, or with a view to selfish aims, but always lov- 
ingly, and with a view to the highest good of all. It 
breathes "Peace on earth and good will to men." It 
manifests itself beneficently. Wherever this spirittouches 
the earth, the blightings of the curse disappear, the 
power of selfishness is broken, universal brotherhood 
inculcated, the cruel and the oppressive, are trans- 
formed into philanthropists and benefactors of their 
race, crushed humanity is lifted up, the poor protected, 
their rights secured, the unfortunate pitied, the afflicted 
comforted, the bereaved consoled, and their griefs as- 
suaged. 

But into this world of ours, has gone forth the 
Christian religion, not only as the spirit of power and 
of love, but also, as the spirit of a sound mind. And 
in this respect, certainly, is its ministry as necessary as 
it is effectual. 

Evidently, the words of the Apostle, imply the na- 
turally unhealthy condition of the human understand- 
ing. They involve the fact of a diseased and sickly 
mind, a mind loathing its appropriate nourishment, dis- 
qualified for its legitimate employment, perverted in all 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 335 

its powers, irregular in all its activities, a mind, indeed 
morally unsettled and deranged, exhibiting all the 
symptoms of spiritual blindness, infirmity and decay. 
In a word, it is in the apostle's expression intimated 
that the mind, like the body, is subject to diseases, the 
remedy for which can be found only in something for- 
eign to itself. This remedy, the heathen seek in sys- 
tems of philosophy, but with little success. Nay, for 
as they cannot "pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow," 
so neither is it in them "to minister to a mind diseased." 
Notwithstanding their high pretensions, they are utterly 
destitute of remedial power. In spite of all, their vo- 
taries still sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. 
But into this morally demented world of ours, has gone 
forth a spirit, whose ministry is effectual to heal the 
diseased and to enlighten the darkened understanding, 
a spirit emphatically akin to that which was in Daniel; 
an excellent spirit, a spirit of light and of understanding 
and of wisdom, .like the wisdom of the gods ; a spirit of 
discernment and of right judging, whose touch is the 
recovery of the mind from all its spiritual aberrations ; 
its restoration to moral sanity. It is the spirit of a 
sound mind. It manifests itself intelligently, rationally, 
in sober-mindedness and in self-control, giving to its 
possessor the command of himself, and the right use of 
all his powers. Hence, the participant in this spirit, is 
no mere unreasoning creature, abandoned to impulse 
or selfish caprice, but ever self-poised, and calm, supe- 
rior to anger, which is insanity, and to all morbid imag- 
inings, which is mental disease. He holds a steady 
rein on every appetite and passion in all his activities, 
guided by a mind held in sublime equipoise by the re- 
straints of an enlightened conscience and a vivid appre- 
hension of what is just and seemly, in view of the rela- 
tive claims of time and eternity. 



336 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Evidentl} r , then, the votary of this religion is no 
enthusiast, in the offensive sense of that term, as indi- 
cating a visionary, a fanatic, one abandoned to a mere 
conceit to some ill-grounded hope or extravagant expec- 
tation. True, there have been, in the world, enthusi- 
asts, so-called, who, outraging all propriety on the 
ground of some supposed special prerogative granted of 
heaven, have attempted to justify their frantic zeal un- 
der the sacred name of religion, while the enemies of 
the truth, unable, or else unwilling, to distinguish be- 
tween the false and the real, have indiscriminately and 
opprobriously hurled the charge of enthusiasm against 
every earnest and well directed effort to secure the 
immortality and blessedness of heaven. All such at- 
tempts, however, to identify the earnestness inspired 
by the Christian religion with the unseemly demonstra- 
tions of fanaticism, are but the result, either of the igno- 
rance, or of the depravity of those with whom they 
originate. The Christian is no enthusiast in the sense 
in which unspiritual men, alien to all his aims and aspi- 
rations, would, in their self-complacency, thus endeavor 
to fasten upon him the dreadful stigma. His religion 
is not the spirit of fanaticism, but the spirit of a sound 
mind. 

There is a sense, however, in which, if the term 
enthusiast be applied to the Christian, he pleads no 
exemption from the charge, a sense involving no 
impeachment of his sanity, or a question even as to the 
soundness of his mind. If we take the term literally, 
and in its original import, as indicating one inspired, 
or possessed by a god, whose soul is all aglow with 
divinely kindled and enkindling raptures and unearthly 
fervors, one who moves at the bidding of superhuman 
impulses and powers and is controlled by a vivid appre- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 337 

hension of the reality of divine things, and the abiding 
sense of their certainty and infinite importance, if we 
are to understand by the term, one whose mind is ani- 
mated by the loftiest ideas, whose heart is warmed in 
the pursuit of the noblest ends and, who, heedless of 
dangers and of difficulties, devotes his whole being, and. 
with a sublime abandonment to the achievement of the 
highest destiny of which his nature is capable, then, 
gladly, does the Christian confess himself an enthu- 
siast, glories, even, in the opprobrious epithet. For, 
then, were Abraham and Moses enthusiasts and all 
the holy prophets of Israel. Then were Paul and 
Peter enthusiasts and all the apostles. Then were Lu- 
ther and Wesley enthusiasts and all the reformers. 
Then were the martyrs burning at the stake enthusiasts 
and all that have, in their spirit, suffered in the name 
and for the sake of the Lord Jesus. Then were the 
myriads of the blood-washed immortals that now stand 
waving victorious palm in the presence of God and the 
Lamb, enthusiasts and all who, through much tribula- 
tion, are now struggling for the celestial goal. 

But, as the Christian is no wild enthusiast, so neither 
is it possible that he should be the slave of superstition. 
Superstition is simply the belief, without evidence, 
or the belief of what is absurd. Hence, the victim of 
its power can never be in the possession of a sound 
mind. Of the Christian, however, it cannot be affirmed 
that his is a belief without evidence, or the belief of 
what is absurd. His religion is no cunningly devised 
fable," but the firm adherence of his soul, rather, to 
truths forced upon his acceptance by the most reliable 
testimony of earth, and the sublimest endorsement of 
heaven. Opposed, in its very nature, to everything irra- 
tional or absurd, it addresses itself directly, not to any- 



338 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

thing in the nature of man, ignoble or low, not to his 
cupidity or to his fear, but to his most enlightened 
understanding, commanding the attention and coercing 
the assent thereof, by the noblest of all motives, by 
the grandest of all considerations, by the propriety of its 
sanctions, by the utility of its doctrines, and by the 
reasonableness of its demands. 

The Christian religion requires of no man a belief 
without evidence. Its spirit voices itself in the words 
of its great Founder : " If I do not the works of my 
Father believe me not." It presents its credentials at 
the bar of human reason, claiming no exemption from 
its most rigid scrutiny. Grand and symmetrical, on 
its noble form are none of the characteristics of false- 
hood. Falsehood is disingenuous, mean, cowardly, 
cringing in all its instincts, craven. It dodges each ray of 
light, and skulking like a thief at midnight, trembles at 
the dawn of day. Not so the Christian religion. When 
did it ever play the coward, or beg a truce of its ene- 
mies? It courts the light, challenges investigation. 
It says to the skeptic, " come with all the tests your in- 
genuity can devise. Bring your lense, collect all the 
rays of light from all sources, whether of sun or star, 
whether of history or of science, or of philosophy, col- 
lect all, concentrate all, with all intensity, and search 
me, and see if there be any wicked way in me. If I 
have done evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, 
why smitest thou me ? " 

The chains of superstition are riveted in the dark ; 
bring the victim into the light and his fetters dissolve. 
But the Christian religion is the offspring of the day. 
The daylight of intelligence is the period of its grand- 
est achievements. Nay, it is itself the daylight of the 
soul. Never did men know what daylight is, until the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 339 

'effulgence of this orb burst upon the world. It is the 
lifting away of the veil, the rolling back of the cloud, 
the shedding down of golden splendors from the skies, 
the rising of the sun of righteousness, upon the rejoic- 
ing nations with healing in his wings. 

I know, indeed, that this light has been called dark- 
ness. There are not wanting among literary men, even, 
and would-be philosophers, those who deem it polite 
and essential to the scientific spirit, of which they are 
so enamored, to speak of the Christian religion as an 
'•old superstition, a worn out, oriental fiction," as a 
•sort of a dense gloom, a hideous night, intercepting the 
world's progress, and through which, humanity has for 
ages past, been compelled, with difficulty, and with only 
partial success, to struggle on in the direction of its 
legitimate goal. But, if this religion be darkness, 
whither shall we look for light ? A darkness, how 
strange, how uncommon, how peculiar all its character- 
istics, a darkness, indeed, which may be felt ; the grand 
constituents of which are love, and joy, and peace; 
a darkness which dispels all other darkness, and be- 
comes itself a brilliant sun to enlighten, cheer and bless 
the world. Yes, it is a most genial darkness, genial 
to all the purposes of the highest civilization; genial to 
the ambitious strides of science and the onward march 
of intellect; genial to the achievement of all that is noble 
in art, or refined in literature; genial to the realization 
of every rational hope, and to the growth of every ra- 
tional enterprise; genial to the expansion of every 
power, and to the development of every virtue, whether 
moral, social or political. And if this be darkness, 
then, never again, let me see the light. Put out all the 
suns, quench all the stars, intercept every ray ; let me 
live and die in this darkness. Let it gather in ever 



340 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

deepening folds upon my pathway, to the end of my 
life's pilgrimage. Let it enshroud my sonl in the mo- 
ment of its latest conflict. Yea, let it envelop me for- 
ever, for it is a darkness that enables me to see a great 
way off, even to the immortal shore. In it, I am en- 
abled to see distinctly my name written in the lamb's 
book of life. This darkness is the light of heaven, the 
joy of angels, the pavilion of God. 

In a myriad forms has superstition existed in the 
world, and over the minds of men exerted a despotic 
sway. But, if such is the Christian religion, how shall 
we classify it, or to what form does it belong. Shall 
we name it the religion of desire, the very lowest form of 
superstition, which rises no higher than simply a be- 
lief in enchantments, fascinations and charms. While 
infinitely more, yet, is the Christian religion emphatic- 
ally a religion of desire, comprehensive, indeed, of all 
holy, rational desire, embracing all the distinctly re- 
vealed, and divinely proffered benefits of the everlast- 
ing gospel. And I rejoice to know that in this religion 
there is also a holy enchantment, a peculiar fascina- 
tion, and a wonderful charm, a sort of triple influence, 
potent to defend the trembling spirit of its possessor, 
against all the machinations of earth, and the malignity 
of hell. That enchantment is the power of truth, that 
fascination, the attraction of the cross, that charm the 
voice of the Saviour, and His redeeming love. It is an 
enchantment, like unto that which the moon walking in 
brightness, throws over the bosom of the ocean, heav- 
ing to greet her noiseless light. It is a fascination like 
unto that which the sun in the heavens exerts through- 
out the solar system, which fixes forever, each stainless 
orb in silent wonder, mantling each in the splendors of 
an eternal smile ; it is a charm divine, like unto that 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 341 

flung upon the eastern Magi's palpitating hearts, by 
Bethlehem's mystic star, whose silent and resistless in- 
fluences wooed them away from their native land, to 
the shrine of the incarnate God, the new-born King of 
the Jews. The Christian religion, then, is not the 
spirit of fanaticism, with its unnatural assumptions and 
unregulated excitements of feeling, nor yet the spirit of 
superstition, with its morbid imaginings and unfounded 
beliefs, but the spirit of a sound mind, ever revealing 
itself in the right use of the understanding, in a sound 
and healthy action of all the faculties and powers of a 
redeemed and illumined intellect. 

"Beloved," says the Apostle, " Believe not every 
spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, be- 
cause many false prophets are gone out into the world." 
Yes, the world is full of spirits, spirits of light, and 
spirits of darkness. They marshal their hosts, they 
contend for victory and for empire. The spirit of error 
is abroad in the world. In a myriad forms and from 
time immemorial has it flung its blighting on the earth, 
dwarfing the soul and paralyzing the energies of man- 
kind. The spirit of idolatry is abroad in the land, rear- 
ing its altars, to dare the lightnings of heaven, and by 
the millions, leading its votaries to the shrine of its 
stupid gods. The spirit of superstition is abroad in the 
world, over wide realms, claiming jurisdiction, whole 
nations enslaving, curdling their life-blood with fear. 
The spirit of ambition is abroad in the world, engen- 
dering rivalries and revolutions, conspiracies, tumults, 
and wars. The spirit of mammon is abroad in the 
world, diffusing its virus through all the body politic, 
heartless, voracious, canker-like, eating to the very 
vitals of the race. The spirit of all ungodliness, is 
abroad in the world, with its Christless revelries, its 



342 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

outlawry, its Sabbath-breaking, its drunkenness, and 
debauchery, its thefts and robberies, its lusts and mur- 
ders, and unmitigated profanity. Such, the dark spir- 
its thronging the earth, each according to its own 
genius, inducing and leading forth to sad destiny, an 
appropriate train. 

But, lo, suddenly, I see the heavens opening. A 
glory bursts upon the scene. The vision entrances me. 
I hear the nutter of wings and in the air snatches of 
music as from a distant choir. See ! Through the in- 
finite spaces, and from the invisible heights, a bright 
spirit descending ; in her right hand bearing a beaute- 
ous crown, of celestial fibre, of God's own weaving, 
set with three radiant gems, catching the light of the 
eternal sun, reflecting and flashing its immortal splen- 
dors over the world. Descending low, hovering near, 
I see the usurping spirits of evil quailing in her pres- 
ence, and one after another, toppling from their 
thrones. I greet the holy vision. Who art Thou, 
bright visitant ? Whence comest Thou, and what Thy 
mission here ? A voice, tuning heaven's own melody, 
responds : "I am the genius of the Christian religion, 
I came from God, by the way of the cross, I am the 
pledge of his sovereignity, the bearer of His peace to 
earth, the expression of His good will to man. My 
mission here is to exterminate the malignant spirits that 
infest the world and from their cruel grasp, to rescue 
God's ideal man, to melt away the chains that fetter 
him, to make him free, from degradation's depths to 
lift him up, to train him into strength and nobleness and 
into meetness for immortality ; on the head of hu- 
manity, to set this crown, and in this coronation act, 
re-invest it with all its ancient dignities, with the three- 
fold sovereignty of power, love and a sound mind. 



• THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 343 

Oh, Thou hovering spirit ! Crown us to-day. On 
our drooping foreheads recover the long obliterated 
stamp of royalty. On our unmitered brows set the 
triple-gemmed diadem of power, love and a sound mind. 
Spread over us Thy wings. Take us under Thy tuition. 
Extend to us Thy kindly care, Thy choicest benedic- 
tions. Train us for Thy uses on earth, for Thy home 
in heaven, and for Thy companionship and indwelling 
to all eternity. 



i 



CHAPTER XV. 



&tyt Bestre to j5ee Jesus. 

" We would see Jesus." John xii. 21. 

Around these Greeks gathers a strange interest. 
They emerge out of obscurity — are for a moment visi- 
ble, then disappear seemingly forever. In the glimpse 
we get of them they assume a mystical character. They 
are typical men. The desire they express is not pecu- 
liar to themselves but natural and universal. Their 
words are but the utterance of what had long burdened 
the heart of humanity — the expression of a feeling em- 
bodying the hope and underlying the struggle of all the 
ages — a feeling recognized by the prophet and to which 
he responded, declaring that the desire of all nations 
should come. 

Under Christ humanity originated, and not by any 
means without reference to his coming in the flesh. 
Humanity was so constituted as that it could be re- 
deemed. In the original structure of our being was 
there a pre-intimation of Jesus and his great work. 
Christ's mission here is to redeem the world. In order 
to this there must be in the world something recogniz- 
ing his presence. The world must come into contact 
with him. He must draw all men unto himself, gather- 
ing them so closely about him as that he can impart to 
them his own life, his own immortality and blessedness. 
This he does through desire, awakened by the silent 
potencies of that all-pervading spirit, without which 

344 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 345 

humanity cannot exist, originating a sense of need of 
spiritual impoverishment, the conviction of the soul 
that the proper object of its life and being has hitherto 
eluded its grasp. 

Thus from the beginning has existed in the nature of 
man an affinity for Christ, a susceptibility of him and 
of the influence he exerts on the world, a mysterious 
feeling of kinship, which, shaping itself in dim pre- 
sentiments, spirit cravings and mightiest yearnings 
of the soul, is ever going out, seeking persistently and 
with more or less definiteness, that it may find and lay 
hold upon some object fully answering to its great 
demands, in possessing which it may find satisfaction, 
the recovery indeed of its long alienated inheritance. 

The entrance of Christ then into the ranks of hu- 
manity was not by any means an impertinence, a forced 
or violent intrusion of himself within a sphere from 
which a rigid application of the law of adaptation 
would have excluded him. He did not, like some 
bold invader, spring suddenly across the deep, dark 
chasm separating between God and man, and light 
unheralded on the shores of mortality — to the world 
an object of terror and dismay. Conspicuous through 
all the centuries had been a tendency on the part of 
divinity in the direction of humanity, ever met, how- 
ever, by a reciprocal tendency on the part of hu- 
manity in the direction of divinity — a yearning of 
heaven towards earth and of earth towards heaven, 
until in the incarnation these mutual tendencies cul- 
minated and the Godman stood revealed in himself, 
blending the sympathies and the perfections of both 
'worlds. The coming then, of him, in whom were 
thus blended the divine and human, was no surprise. 
Surprising, indeed, would it have been had he not 

23 



346 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

come. With the idea of his coming the world had 
long been familiar. With a view to this event had 
the ages been adjusted,. It was a matter of course — 
a necessity. The world was looking for him. A pro- 
jected ray obtruding upon the strained and weary vision 
of the race, had long foretokened the approaching 
day. On susceptibilities inherent in humanity, a 
divine influence had from the beginning exerted itself. 
The spirit of Christ was here before Him, filling with 
anticipatory yearnings, the hearts of men. 

Thus Christ begins his redeeming work by creating 
in the nature of man a demand for Himself. In this 
respect He has never been wanting to the world. In 
some way or other, He has ever touched and influ- 
enced humanity, and the first impulse thus awakened 
has ever been an impulse in the direction of himself. 
There has ever been a mysterious drawing out of the 
souls of man after Him. To Him have pointed, either 
directly or indirectly, all the deeper yearnings of our 
race. He is the infinite good for which the heart has 
ever sighed. In other words, Christ is a necessity for 
the world. A humanity without a Jesus is shrouded in 
in despair. 

I do not here affirm, however, that Jesus is always 
the distinctively recognized object of the heart's yearn- 
ing, but simply, that whether directly or indirectly, 
consciously or unconsciously, the outgoings of desire 
have ever been in this direction. On whatever object, 
short of the true one, desire may, in its blindness, tem- 
porarily fasten itself, still its root is that germinal life, 
which as imparted to the soul by Christ, is struggling 
ever to return to Him, its primeval source. Not in- 
frequently does the heart out-travel the intellect, and its 
helpless tendrils fruitlessly grope for their object within 



■THE VOICE OUT OE THE OLOtlD. 347 

a sphere from which the mental vision is debarred. 
Thus, in the altar inscribed by the Athenians to the un- 
known God, Paul recognized a practical expression of 
their unconscious yearning for the true God, " Whom, 
therefore, ye ignorantly worship.. Him declare I unto 
you." "Ye worship '* said Christ to the woman of Sa- 
maria — " Ye worship ye know not what." So men seek 
Jesus, not knowing it. ''On whom, " said Samuel to Saul, 
"on whom isallthe desire of Israel?*' "Is it not on thee?" 
And just as all the desire of Israel for a king, was by 
Samuel interpreted to be a desire for Saul, though, as 
yet, he was obscure, and to the masses of the people, 
unknown, so may the deep yearnings of humanity for 
some yet unrecognized and indefinable good, be inter- 
preted a desire for Jesus, though, as yet, concealed; 
or, at least, not sufficiently identified in the mind of 
the race as to become the definite object of that. desire. 
Thus men long for help, for satisfaction and for rest, 
and though, for the most part, perhaps, but dimly con- 
scious of Him in whom the object of their yearning 
can be realized, yet ever fruitlessly labor for its attain- 
ment, in all of which there is, did they but know it, a 
practical utterance of the great desire expressed by these 
distinguished Greeks, but a saying to all, and with a 
mournful emphasis: " We would see Jesus." 

And in attempting to trace this desire to see Jesus, 
as thus unconsciously uttered by our race, I remark : 

That Christ is a necessity for the human mind. He 
only can satisfy the requirements of the world's intel- 
lect. Short of Him, its ideals of excellence are with- 
out any corresponding object. 

Could I this moment introduce you into some splen- 
did gallery of art, in which are collected and arranged, 
according to their respective and relative merit, all the 



348 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD, 

higher products of human genius, you would doubtless 
be highly gratified, and would say to yourself, "Now, 
at least, for once, my ideals of excellence shall be fully 
realized." Proceeding then to -investigate all in their 
appropriate order, the rare and finely executed speci- 
mens there exhibited, you advance from one to another, 
from the lowest and least perfect in the series, to the 
highest and most perfect of all — all the while conscious 
of a growing admiration of the excellence thus pre- 
sented. But having now reached the very last and most 
exquisitely wrought specimen in the series, the one em- 
bodying the excellence of all the rest, in which, indeed, 
the force of genius culminates ; for the moment you 
stand wrapped in admiration, kindling with enthusiasm, 
satisfied. Nay, strange to say, the every next instant you 
instinctively and perhaps, all unconsciously, glance 
your eye around you, expecting something better, and 
with a sort of latent dissatisfaction, say: Is this all. 

Neither, indeed, is this to be wondered at, when we 
remember that the very ideal of excellence, for which, 
you have been thus fondly seeking, in these, the works 
of the greatest masters, but found not, and are still 
looking for in something beyond, is the very ideal that 
lived in and kindled the soul of the noble artist whose 
very best product has failed to satisfy your desire, an 
ideal which even he, himself, never realized, but for 
which he has through all these years patiently labored, 
and in approaching which he has produced this, the 
very grandest specimen of his art. 

Now, what I intend by this illustration, is simply 
to show that the mind of man bears within itself the 
types or symbols of a perfection, the recognition of 
which, within the limits, of the finite, is impossible; 
that in the mirror of the soul there is reflected the image 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 349 

of an excellence, to which it is not naturally an heir, 
to which, within the compass of ordinary thought and 
achievement, there is no counterpart, no reality cor- 
responding. It is, T think, and ever has been the con- 
viction of our race, that there is in the universe some 
where, a perfection of beauty, truth and power — some- 
object, whether attainable or unattainable, in which all 
its excellencies center, culminate and blend, that as in 
the solar system, there is a point in which all its light 
converges, and whence it emanates, weaving over all the 
world its web of beauty : so is there in the universe 
some point, however remote, in which centralizes and 
blends all its perfection, and of which central perfection 
the transient excellencies of earth are but the scattered 
rays. Thus men have looked out upon the world 
around them, discovering here a ray of beauty, there a 
ray of truth, and yonder a ray of beneficent power. 
These separate rays, they have said, are not self origi- 
nated. They are not independent, isolated sparks, but 
far-reaching beams from some central orb. There must 
be a fountain of light somewhere. Thus kindled and 
charmed, they have followed instinctively, and as best 
they could, up through the obscuring vapors these 
scintillating rays in the direction of their source, thus 
saying to all. We would see the sun. We would see Jesus. 

The demands of the human intellect then, are very 
great. They are always for an excellences of which in- 
finite forms, we catch only here and there a glimpse — 
a transient, typical ray. Towards this excellence, the 
mind of man must, of necessity, go forth in perpetual 
desire. It is the law of the mind, that it is continually 
seeking, to realize its ideals, to apprehend in the outer 
world, some object fully answering to its cherished con- 
ceptions of greatness, and of power. The secret, in- 



350 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

deed, of all intellectual developments, is in this cease- 
less putting forth of the powers of the mind, to grasp 
that of which, in itself, it bears only the image. The 
soul has dreamed a dream, of somewhat, transcending 
all its waking experience, which it holds to be pro- 
phetic, and which, with ceaseless, mysterious, restless 
yearnings, it seeks to interpret, and to realize in all of 
which three is a going out of its aspirations, beyond the 
limits of the finite, within which it finds nothing com- 
mensurate with its actual requirements — a saying — how- 
ever unconsciously, however fruitlessly, still a saying. 
" We would see Jesus." 

This desire, then, is intensely practical. It is a 
longing, exploring desire — manifesting itself in all ac- 
tivities, in all the restlesness of our race. The world is 
busy seeking its ideals, and in all, unconsciously seek- 
ing Jesus. And, in all the efforts of genius to realize 
in products of highest art, its ideals of the beautiful, 
there is certainly something more of meaning, and con- 
sequently of sublimity, than appears to the cursory 
view. Too often, indeed, are these efforts regarded as 
without any moral significance whatever, held to be the 
result of nothing deeper than Avhat is called the aes- 
thetic in the nature of man, indulged in merely as a 
pastime, or as a recreation, or it may be, with the more 
generous aim, of elevating and gratifying the taste, and 
thus ministering to the pleasure, and to the culture of 
mankind. Underlying all these efforts, however, is a 
feeling, vastly more profound. The sense of beauty is 
divine. The universal struggle in outward forms to 
realize it. roots itself in the moral nature of man. The 
genius of high art, is but the Spirit of Christ in hu- 
manity, struggling ever to realize its goal in. fiifn, its 
hidden source, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 351 

Genius is universal and representative, apprehend- 
ing and expressing for us, all those latent tendencies, of 
which, perhaps, as individuals, we were before, but 
dimly conscious. The great poet, painter, sculptor, 
architect, sustains always a typical representative char- 
acter. What He says and does. He says and does for 
us all. He is our Spokesman. He knows us better 
than we know ourselves. In His words and works, the 
universal soul finds enlargement, expansion — and the 
going out in some sort of its inappeaseable desire to at- 
tain to the recognition of a perfection, to which it is 
consciously adapted, and in the possession of which it 
only can find satisfaction and repose. 

Thus in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, and in 
architecture, there is but the outgoing of the soul, after 
the perfection of beauty, but a reaching out of its dor- 
mant powers, after the infinitely lovely. In all noble 
art, there is something religious — a sentiment of true 
devotion, unconsciously expressing itself. In every 
statue, in every picture, in every lofty dome, and up- 
ward reaching spire, there is a prayer, the embodied 
yearning of our nature, for the better things. Who can 
doubt the source of the inspiration, under which 
wrought the Grecian artist. His religion was a deifica- 
tion of the spirit of nature, in its various manifesta- 
tions. He worshiped beauty, a strange fascination ex- 
erted upon his soul, by the woods, the waters and the 
balmy skies. This was his only Deity, the divinity 
thronging his imagination, and his conceptions of which 
he ever sought to realize, in forms chiseled from the 
rock. With patient toil he developed his ideal loveli- 
ness, and wrought it out in elegant statuary, in crea- 
tions of symmetry and of grace, in all of which he em- 
bodied the deep, yet indistinct cravings of his spirit for 



352 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the infinite, saying as plainly as his unskilled tongue 
could utter it, not only for his own, but for all kindred 
aspirations. " We would see Jesus." 

Equally, if not yet more profoundly significant, of 
what may be called, the unconscious Christ yearning in 
humanity, is the struggle of the intellect of all ages to 
attain to a perfect apprehension., or knowledge of the 
truth. I confess, that upon my soul, gathers a tinge 
of melancholy as I take up, what is called the histories 
of philosophy, and trace, therein, the fruitless endeav- 
ors of the world's intellect, to solve the question. 

What is truth." One thing is evident, the mind of the 
race has never been idle. Through all the centuries 
something has kept it on the alert. Some deep secret, 
God inspired consciousness of its need of the truth, and 
that in some form, or through the interposition of some 
being, that truth would yet be realized, has ever per- 
vaded the human intellect, and stimulated it into a per- 
petual activity. In all its struggles for the goal of a 
clear discovery, it has never yet, quite despaired of ul- 
timate success. However indefinitely, still it has ever 
conceived of, and sought after, a perfect teacher — a 
teacher come from God, one speaking with anthority, 
and whose utterances would be final and satisfactory. 
The world's ear has been open to every voice, and from 
its oft victimized heart has ever gone out to this one 
and to that, the piteous cry. "Art Thou that Prophet 
or do we look for another ?" The bitterest outcry of 
humanity has ever been for some one that could master 
the problem of its existence for some Daniel, in whom 
was the spirit of the holy gods, who could interpret its 
dreams — dissolve its doubts, and fathom the mysteries 
that amaze its intelligence, and mock its attempts at so- 
lution. Under the force of the conviction, that the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 358 

hidden source of helps, would yet be disclosed, has the 
intellect of the race wrought incessantly. How sub- 
lime the struggle — through thousands of years pro- 
tracted without relaxation, without discouragement by 
some secret fascination held to its purpose. It has 
multiplied its oracles, its astrologers, its soothsayer. It 
has founded its schools, instituted its methods, de- 
vised its plans, originated its theories. And wherefore? 
Was it simply that in these activities, it might find 
some transient respite from the cares of practical life? 
Are we to discover in all this painful, weary, patient 
searching after truth, only a vain endeavor for distinc- 
tion, a meaningless trial of intellectual strength, an 
amusement merely — only this — nothing more ? Was 
there no Christ in all, no yearning of - the spirit of the 
truth, for Him who is the truth, no creeping up and 
reaching out of the tendrils of the benighted soul 
toward the light? "Where" exclaims the eloquent 
Rousseau, "where is the philosopher, who for his own 
glory would not willingly deceive the whole race? " High 
authority, I admit. Yet, can I not think so meanly of 
many, who are evidently entitled to rank in the class he 
thus stigmatizes. Were they not in earnest, the devout 
Socrates, the divine Plato, the skilled Aristotle? They 
remind us too much of Saint Paul, to allow of any, even 
the slightest suspicion as to their sincerity. They were 
in earnest, almost divinely so. Their enthusiasm was 
akin to inspiration. Like men, at night groping their 
way through some dense forest, with .only here and 
there, a ray of starlight on their path, until bewildered 
and weary, they cry. "Would God, it were day." 
So those men groyjed their way through the dense and 
pathless wilderness of Paganism, with only now and 
then a scintillation of the true light, prophetic of ap- 



354 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

proaching day. while with voices strained, and still un- 
heard, they ever and anon cried out from the depths of 
the encompassing gloom. "We would see Jesus." 

So. also, do the deep, unconscious yearnings of hu- 
manity for a Jesus, find utterance in all the activities of 
our race, tending to realize its ideals of power. The 
world has ever cherished the dream of a universal do- 
minion. The tendency of the old civilizations was to 
the realization of this dream, to the centralization of 
power to combine all forces into colossal unity, and 
thus combined, to subjugate them to the jurisdiction of 
a single individual. Secretly, all humanity sighs for a 
king. " Give us a King." said Israel to Samuel. The 
fact is. men never thought of governing themselves un- 
til late. And by the masses of the human family, the 
thought is yet regarded as chimerical. Until recently the 
tendency of the world has been in the direction of the 
Monarchical, rather than the Republican form of govern- 
ment. It was this tendency to mass rather than to distri- 
bute power, that rendered possible the great Eastern Mon- 
archies, the conquests of Alexander, and the subsequent 
rise of the Roman Empire. In the deification of the an- 
cient heroes this tendency culminated. There is, in- 
deed, as all experience amply demonstrates, deeply im- 
planted, somewhere amid the intricacies of our nature, 
a strange reverence for power, as embodied and repre- 
sented in the rulers of the people, an admiration of the 
victories and the conquests, by which that power is ex- 
tended, and by the state, and pomp, and splendor in 
which it invests itself, which is, to say the least, very re- 
markable, and in all of which there is certainly a pre- 
intimation of an unconscious looking for Him, whose 
right it is to reign. Who is the Prince of the Kings of the 
earth, the realization of the world's highest conception 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 355 

of regal splendor and power, and of whom it is said that 
ie He shall have dominion also, from sea to sea, and from 
the river unto the ends of the earth." 

But Christ is a necessity, not only for the human 
intellect, but also, and especially for the human heart. 

There is in the human heart, first of all, a perpetual 
craving for help. Its burdens are greater than it can 
carry. Will not someone come to its relief. Conscious- 
ness of guilt oppresses it. Even among heathen nations, 
this consciousness has not been wanting. Two great facts 
especially, have ever been distinctly recognized, the 
anger of the gods, and the necessity of appeasing them. 
Propitiation is no less a requirement of the human heart 
than of the "Bible. The soul is in exile, in loneliness, 
disgusted, exposed, tremblingly seeking ever, its cen- 
ter of rest in God. But something comes between it 
and the coveted goal. Sinfulness interposes, a dread 
of consequences steals in. The sinfulness, how shall it 
be removed; the consequences, how shall they be 
averted. Only through the patronage of some higher 
being, generously interposing for this result. The feel- 
ing of the human heart, has ever been that in order to 
its deliverance, from the forebodings that oppress it. 
and the restoration of the peace, for which it sighs, 
some special divine interposition is necessary. 

This interposition the Greek sought in the advocacy 
of the deified inhabitants of his Olympus. The sages 
of the Kast, recognized it in the guardianship of the 
innumerable spirits, with which they peopled the stars. 
In ways multitudinous, has this feeling of the need of 
some foreign help, found expression, in all of which, 
however, is there a pre- intimation of the one great 
Helper, a going out of the soul, consciously guilty, after 
Him. who is the propitiation for our sins, and not for 



356 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world, a 
saying however feebly, however desparingly. still a say- 
ing, " We would see Jesus." 

It is not my design, however, here to enlarge, but 
simply to show that there is in humanity, that which 
demands a Christ, that Jesus is a necessity for the race. 
I wish to show, I say, that its deepest spirit cravings, 
as well as its profoundest heart- yearnings, have ever 
testified to a latent affinity in the nature of man for a 
[esus, and as such are, even in the absence of any di- 
rect revelation, a perpetual prophecy of Him, uttering 
itself in all activities, having as their goal, mental satis- 
faction, and spiritual repose. Christ is the Pattern 
Man. And the very first impulse of the germinal life 
by His spirit imparted to humanity, is to take on His 
image, to unfold into a likeness with Himself. Each 
craving of the spirit then, for better things, each aspira- 
tion of the heart for what is noble, is but an uncon^ 
scious Christ, yearning, is but an impulse, in the direc- 
tion of Him Who is the flower of humanity, in whom 
the beauty, love and truth germinant in the human soul, 
come to bloom. Think of a humanity without a Jesus, 
then, grappling with the mystery of being, solve it if you 
can. Then tell me, if you can, whence those secret, 
persistent stirrings of the soul, those heavenward-reach- 
ing tendencies, those successive spiritual impulses car- 
rying humanity forward in a progressive development 
in the direction of the infinite. Then ask desparingly 
as you must. What does all this mean, this reaching 
forth of the hands, and grasping nothing, this perpetual 
cry, and no responsive echo, this eternal thirst, 1 and no 
fountain at which to slake it, life one great heartache, 
a prolonged groan, a deep, dark, terrible struggle. 
Take away Jesus, and of the source of all this, you are 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 357 

as oblivious as you are of the goal to which it tends. 
If the anxieties, the disquitudes, and perturbations of our 
race, with all its ceaseless round of unrequited toil, 
point not to Jesus, whither then, I ask do they point ? 
Is it all a mockery, a beating of the air? Is the world 
simply running itself out of breath, chasing shadows. 
Whence the attraction if there be no magnet? Why 
this eternal trembling of the needle to the pole? Coun- 
ter attractions may occasion variations, but the prevail- 
ing tendency is only in one direction. The world's 
yearning, then, is a great prophecy, unconscious, un- 
written, it may be, still a prophecy pointing to Christ. 
And like all prophecy, God inspired, it must be fulfilled. 
What ? so much thirst and no fountain ? Impossible. 
Already the fountain gurgles, while over the hot desert, 
come ringing voices responsive to the world's cry, in- 
viting its famishing millions to the crystal stream. < ' Ho 
everyone that thirsteth come ye to the waters. " 

But Christ is the object, not only of the unconscious, 
but also of the conscious yearnings of the race. He has 
been to human hearts, in all ages the definitely recog- 
nized object of desire. "Abraham," says Christ, "re- 
joiced to see my day. and He saw it and was glad." 
It was not an altogether blind and unintelligent feeling 
that went out from the heart of Job, in the exclamation, 
• O that I knew where I might find Him. " All along the 
way of the ages, from the time of the expulsion from 
Eden, had ever and anon been lifted up, prophetic 
voices, heralding to an expectant humanity the com- 
ing Messiah. More and more distinctly did these 
prophetic voices announce to the successive genera- 
tions, the joyous fact in the proclamation. "Behold 
thy salvation cometh." God Himself i^ave the kev 
note. -'The seed of the woman shall bruise the ser- 



358 THE VOICE OUT OE THE CLOUD. 

pent's head." To this was subsequently accommo- 
dated the whole chorus of prophetic harmony as from 
the lips of Patriarch and Seer, it warbled down the 
stream of time until lost in those inarticulate centuries 
intervening between Malachi and John the Baptist. 

The effect of these prophetic announcements with 
their cumulative distinctness could not fail to be the 
awakening of an intense desire to realize their speedy 
fulfillment. Desire was not only kindled, but in earn- 
est prayer that desire went up to God that he would 
hasten the coming of the long expected one. How fer- 
vently in anticipation of that coming does the Psalmist 
cry out. " O that the salvation of Israel were come out 
of Zion." In the Spirit of Prophecy. Isaiah sees the 
hope of Israel, coming from Edom with dyed garments 
from Bozra, glorious in his apparel, traveling in the 
greatness of His strength. But impatient of delay, his 
prophecy suddenly turns to prayer. Vehemently he 
cries, '•(), that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that 
Thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might 
flow down at Thy presence. " 

Not, however, that there were no conscious yearn- 
ings for Jesus outside of Judaism. The Jewish expec- 
tation was shared in, and cherished by prophetic souls 
in all nations. It was not by any means, an indefinite, 
unintelligent anticipation of Him and of His coming, 
that led the Eastern Magi to associate so readily with 
the appearance of that mystic star the birth of Israel's 
King. It was no blind, instinctive yearning, under the 
force of which those devout astrologers started out 
from their distant homes in the valley of the Euphrates, 
and in patience followed through all the intervening 
desert, the guidance of that lone sentinel until it came 
and stood over where the young child was. They knew 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 350 

precisely whose star that was, of what it was the symbol, 
whither it was leading them. Hence, yielding to its fas- 
cination, they went forth, giving utterance to their vivid 
apprehension of the grandeur of their mission as they came 
to Jerusalem, saying, " Where is He that is born King of 
the Jews, for we have seen His Star in the East, and are 
come to worship Him.'* And how, not only before, 
but especially since His coming in the flesh, have the 
hearts of men gone out, in conscious desire to see 
Jesus. In songs and in sighs, in pilgrimages and in 
prayer, does this desire find expression. ''And I, if I 
be lifted up from the earth " says Christ, "will draw all 
men unto Me. " The truth of that prophetic word is 
now being realized in the turning of the hearts of all 
men, in the direction of the cross. 

The Sight of Jesus is Possible. 

The desire of these Greeks, was only for a literal, 
sensible vision of Christ. Whether they saw Him in the 
sense they desired, we are not informed. To many, 
however, in those days, was granted the very privilege 
to which these devout men, so humbly aspired. We 
are overwhelmed with the thought. We know so much 
better than did His contemporaries, who He was, that 
was thus visibly present among them. We know He 
was God — God manifest in the flesh. We are conscious, 
indeed, of something almost painful in our attempts to 
realize the fact, that it was actually, really God, that 
in an humble peasant garb, dust-be-sprinkled, weary 
and faint, sat there on Jacob's well, and asked that Sa- 
maritan woman to give Him a drink. And yet there 
were eyes that saw even that. This literal vision of 
Christ, however, was necessarily limited. It could not 



360 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

last. The disciples would have perpetuated it. They 
supposed it the best thing possible. He answered them 
to the contrary. "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, 
it is expedient for you that I go away. " He has gone 
away — not lost, but gone before — to the vision of sense, 
leaving nothing, not so much, even, as a solitary foot- 
print on the sands of the earth He once so humbly 
trod. "And he led them out as far as Bethany, and 
lifted up His hands and blessed them, and it came to 
pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them 
and carried up into heaven." So what is now left to 
the world, is : 

i. The intellectual perception of Christ. We may 
now see Jesus ideally, as delineated to our apprehen- 
sion on the sacred page. This is the privilege of all, 
to whom have come the Holy Scriptures, Herein is 
the record of His marvelous life, the incidents of which 
we may, with an ever increasing wonder, distinctly 
trace, from the moment of His advent in the manger 
at Bethlehem, to that in which on Olivet's summit He 
is parted from us, taken up, and the cloud receives 
Him from our sight. And this is just what the world is 
now trying to do, trying to conceive intellectually of 
Jesus, trying to form a distinct mental conception of 
Him, His life, His character, and of His great work. 
And it is remarkable, to what an extent the Person of 
Christ is now becoming an object of increasing interest 
to the mind of the race. To the Christian, and to the 
infidel alike, to the theologian and to the philosopher 
as well, to scholars and to scientists, and to men of in- 
telligence generally, has Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of 
Joseph, now become the subject of intensest study. 
More and more distinctly is He obtruding Himself 
within the sphere of the mental vision of mankind. • The 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 361 

stone which the builders rejected, is now becoming the 
head stone of the corner. 

2. And yet, after all, it is only spiritually that we can 
see Jesus. The eye of sense cannot discern Him. Said 
John the Baptist to the deputation of Priests and Le- 
vites, that came to him from Jerusalem: " There 
standeth one among you Whom ye know not." Though 
ever walking in the eyes of man, they saw Him not, nor 
could they, save, as now and then, some ray of His glory 
piercing the vail of sense kindled the perception of Him 
in the depth of the susceptible soul. " Dost thou be- 
lieve in the Son of God ? " Said Jesus to the man, 
whose eyes He had just opened. ''Who is he Lord,'' 
was the response, "that I might believe on Him." Of 
little use in discovering Christ, was his miraculously 
restored eyesight. Seeing, he saw not. " Thou hast 
both seen Him " said Jesus, and it is He that talketh 
with thee." To the eye of sense, it seems, Christ pre- 
sented nothing of special interest, nothing of the ma- 
jesty of Clod-head enthroned on His brow, nothing of 
the light of divinity, beaming from His eye. Hardly 
distinguishable from the mass, in Him was no lineament 
of greatness, no trace of celestial origin, no evidence 
of kinship, with supernal powers, kindling the enthusi- 
asm of genius, or recognized by the artist as worthy of 
being transferred to the canvas, or reproduced in mar- 
ble for the admiration of the coming ages. " He hath 
no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him 
there is no beauty that we should desire Him." Spir- 
itual eyesight was needed in Judea. Those only, to 
whom this had been given, saw in Him the light of the 
world. In no way, other than spiritually, was Jesus 
recognized in the temple, by the devout Simeon, and 
Anna the Prophetess. In this way only, by John the 

24 



862 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Baptist, who, to his disciples pointed Him out, as in 
sublime loneliness, He walked on the banks of the 
Jordon, saying, " Behold the Lamb of God." So, also 
Peter recognized Him, exclaiming, "Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God." " Blessed, " said 
the Saviour to the disciples, "Blessed are your eyes 
for they see." How blessed the vision to those who 
could appreciate it. How wonderful the fascination by 
His presence, exerted upon the susceptible heart. Of 
that fascination, Mary was conscious, as she sat at His 
feet. It holds millions to-day in its entrancing thrall. 
But even as in the days of His flesh, Christ was hidden 
from the eyes of some, so now it is simply impossible, 
without the illumination of His Spirit ideally to trace 
the lineaments of His wonderful character as reflected 
in the divine mirror of His Word. True, with seeming 
sincerity we look into the inspired record, saying, 
' ' We would see Jesus, " but to our merely intellectual ap- 
prehensions is revealed no trace of the divine object of 
our search. We see only the shadow of a great mystery 
flitting over the sacred page. Its indistinctness per- 
plexes us. We arrest it, question it, accuse it of insin- 
cerity, of guilty reticence, and with the Jews of old, 
try to extort from it, a confession of its identity, say- 
ing, "How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If 
Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Thus Strauss and 
Renan and others of subtle intellect, looking into the 
gospels, have recognized in them only a marvelous leg- 
end, concerning one called Jesus, and in their works, 
have attempted a delineation of Him, in conformity 
with their partial apprehensions. But the enlightened 
perception of Christendom has rejected their delinea- 
tions as the merest caricature. Glancing at these mere 
intellectual portraitures many an unpretending Chris- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 363 

tian has turned sadly away, saying, "This is not the 
Jesus, whose glory-beaming countenance meets my 
gaze, and enraptures my being, as through my tears I 
look into the gospel. From the wise and prudent, 
Christ is hidden. He is revealed only unto babes. 
From the simply curious, He is veiled. He shrinks 
from the wanton gaze of the unsanctified. But to the 
spirit yearning for Him, to the eye of the soul opened 
and enlightened, He discloses His. majesty and makes 
known His love. There is a time, it may be after six 
days, after an indefinite period of patient teaching, and 
of preparatory discipline under the law, yet there is a 
time when Jesus takes His disciples, and bringing them 
up into a high mountain apart, is transfigured before 
them, when His face, before so marred, more than any 
man, suddenly becomes all luminous, shining as the 
sun, and His very raiment white as the light, when 
Moses and Elias now invested in their true character, 
appear in glory, talking with Him ; when the fascina- 
tion of a divine presence, growing upon the soul of 
each, he exclaims, "Lord it is good for us to be here," 
when emphatically a bright cloud overshadows them, 
out of which, to their listening souls, comes the attest- 
ing word, the voice of paternal approving Deity. 
"This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 
Henceforth, pointing to that Sacred Mount, and in the 
recollection of that ecstatic hour, each with the favored 
John may say, "And we beheld His glory, the glory as 
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth." 

But the sight of Jesus is not only possible, but also 
satisfying. 

He is not only the object, but also the ultimate of 
all desire. He not only awakens the longing of the 



364 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

soul, but consummates it. He who is the source of 
the world's restlessness, is also the center of its repose. 
Beyond Him, there is nothing for which, in our moral 
nature, there is the slightest affinity, nothing around 
which any tendril of the human heart struggles to en- 
twine. He is the goal of the world's noblest strivings, 
the realizations of its sublimest conceptions of what is 
good, and beautiful, and true. Who sees Him, sees 
all, wishes for nothing more, is capable of nothing 
more. The goal of being is realized. Christ, once 
fully within the range of our vision, all other objects 
are lost sight of. 

As by the light of opening day 

The stars are all concealed, 
So earthly objects fade away 

When Jesus is revealed. 

Here, then, is rest, rest for the weary soul. Here 
is rest for the mind, satisfaction for the world's intens- 
est intellectual yearnings. In Jesus it finds all. He is 
the perfection of beauty, the chiefest among ten thou- 
sand, of whose infinite loveliness, each faint and vary- 
ing shade of natural beauty, whether of fountain or of 
flower, of gorgeous sun or of mildly beaming star, is 
but a fleeting, typical ray. He is himself, the truth, the 
ultimate verity of the universe. In Him is the mystery 
of being solved, life's great problem mastered. He is 
the power of God. He is supreme in the spirit realm. 
In Him is the world's long cherished dream of a uni- 
versal dominion, fully realized. 

Here too is rest for the heart. '- Thou shalt call 
his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their 
sins." Here then the goal of an infinite satisfaction is 
reached, the last tendril of the yearning soul gathered 
up and fastened on him. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 365 

And just here I picture to myself the universe, a grand 
art gallery, in which have been collected, assorted and 
tastefully arranged for exhibition the varied products 
of an infinite skill. A myriad excellencies arrest my eye 
as it wanders over the scene. The light of beauty is on 
all — beauty everywhere — beauty more and more en- 
trancing as I pass on from one to another of the in- 
numerable objects that for the moment fix my doubtful 
gaze and with the light of beauty blending in a thou- 
sand forms the light of truth and of beneficent power. 
1 linger a while, I pluck the rose, I dally with the sun- 
beam, I wonder, I admire. And yet my eye is restless. 
Its gaze unsteady betrays the secret consciousness of 
my soul that even this is not the best. 1 am conscious 
of a capacity for somewhat superior to it all. Impressible 
yearnings voice themselves. Who will show us any 
good ? 'This vail of sense, who will rend it and let in 
the light of which all this is but a reflection ? But, lo, 
yonder at the farthest extremity of this crowded area an 
angel stands in beautiful robes attired. In one hand 
he holds a golden lyre, while with the other, as I near 
the lofty pedestal on which he stands, he lifts away the 
intercepting vail. Suddenly the whole gallery is aglow 
— bathed in a celestial light and a tinge of heaven is on 
all the scene. But, now, in the midst of this wide, dif- 
fusing splendor appears a central halo, encircling a 
form divine. Overwhelmed and prostrate at his feet I 
humbly ask, "Who is this?" The angel touches me 
and whispers, " This is Jesus, the one altogether lovely, 
the central glory of the universe, the image of the 
invisible God. Rapturously I lift my eyes, my gaze is 
fixed, the fascination is perfect, the enchantment all 
absorbing, the charm complete, fear is annihilated, 
anxieties cease, the quiet of heaven steals in. I am 



366 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ready to die, willing rather to be absent from the body 
and be present with the Lord. In him my nature finds 
its counterpart, all deficencies supplemented, the eqi- 
poise of being restored the sense of infinite loss sup- 
planted by the sense of infinite gain, my soul entranced, 
its yearnings satisfied, dissolves into the embrace of in- 
finite, everlasting love, exclaiming : 

Give me thyself, from every boast 

From every wish set free, 
Let all I am in Thee be lost 

But give thyself to me. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



&\>t Etut <&loxv of ti)e g>anctuarg. 

How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ! — Psalms 
84 : 1. 

It is truly refreshing as we read the Old Testament 
Scriptures, and especially the Psalms, to witness the 
singular devotion of the pious Jew to the services of the 
tabernacle, the steadiness with which amid all vicis- 
situdes he kept his eye on the sanctuary of God. Though 
carried away captive into distant lands and whelmed 
beneath the waves of domestic and political misfortune, 
he still remembered Zion. Distance could not weaken 
his attachment for its hallowed altars, nor adversity re- 
press the passionate longing of his soul for its accustomed 
shrine. Amid all reverses he instinctively turned to that 
holy Hill and with yearnings irrepressible exclaimed, 
" When shall I come and appear before God?" His 
every feeling, his every impulse tended to the sancuary 
as enshrining the object of his soul's brightest aspira- 
tions and as the only place where he could find a respite 
from his toils and sweet oblivion to all his cares. In 
subserving its interests he realized his ultimate desire, 
and in its services his supreme delight. Hence, whether 
at home or abroad, whether in the wilderness tending 
his flocks or on the field of battle confronting the Syrian 
hosts, whether on the summits of his native hills gather- 
ing the vintage, or beyond the Euphrates carried away 

367 



368 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

captive by the enemy, the hope and the sympathy of the 
pious Jew still centered in Zion. The temple was his pecu- 
liar boast, the symbol not only of his religion, but also 
of his nationality, his attachment for it knew no bounds. 
Its outward splendor as from the rocky eminence of 
Moriah towered above the walls of the Holy City, its 
gilded roofs and marble colonnades, impressed his mind 
and fired his imagination, while upon his heart was 
reflected that hidden splendor of which the outward was 
but the symbol and in the perception of which the pro- 
foundest admiration kindled his soul and forced the 
exclamation of the text, How amiable are thy taber- 
nacles, (J Lord of hosts ! " 

This is entitled, " A Psalm for the Sons of Korah," 
the descendants of him who, with Datlxan and Abram 
and their guilty partisans the earth swallowed during 
the insurrection in the wilderness. Unlike those of 
Dathan and Abram who perished with their fathers, the 
children of Korah were providentially preserved and 
his sons to places of honor assigned as singers in the 
temple services at Jerusalem. The author of the Psalm 
is unknown. The idyl lives, perchance, the solitary 
memorial of the genius that inspired it. Evident^, 
however, it was composed about the time of the return 
of the Jews from captivity in Babylon and was mourn- 
fully chanted by the Levitical choristers on the occasion 
of the laying of the foundations of the second temple. 
Various allusions in this Psalm to the condition of the 
sanctuary at that time and to the feelings of the devout 
Israelite as he contemplated that condition in contrast 
with its former splendor and renown, indicate its pecu- 
liar appropriateness to the occasion it was intended to 
celebrate. It was the celebration of a triumph in the 
midst of ruins and of sad reminiscences, the song of. the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 369 

returned exiles as with deep and mingled emotions they 
addressed themselves to the rebuilding of Zion's fallen 
altars and the restoration of the worship of the their 
pious forefathers. 

To determine precisely, however, the special oc- 
casion with reference to which this Psalm was indited 
is not essential to my present design which is simply to 
inquire as to what constitutes the real attraction of 
(rod's house,, the true glory of the sanctuary. 

From earliest times have been recognized the claims 
of the altar, of the House of God, of certain places dis- 
tinguished and honored as the dwelling places of the 
Most High and where have centered the thoughts and 
blended the sympathies of devout men in all ages. Of 
ajl the objects looming amid the dimness of the dis- 
tant and the fast receding antediluvian centuries, the 
most conspicious is Abel, ministering there at his prime- 
val altar. Altar-crowned we see Ararat's lofty sum- 
mit towering above the receding waters of the flood. 
Promptly obedient to the divine command. Abraham 
out of It of the Chaldees enters within the bound- 
aries of the promised land, and on the plain of Morah 
first pitched his frail symbolic tent and builded there 
an altar unto the Lord. The altar is primodial. The 
sanctuary is as old as the race, not more ancient are the 
mountains, nor yet more solidly have they been placed 
on their broad foundations, than has been planted on the 
surface of this redeemed earth the House of God. With 
the House of God, however, as thus planted, has ever 
been associated a peculiar attraction, a glory mysteri- 
ously, strangely fascinating the hearts of men with an 
indiscribable power, alluring them to its altars, and 
either consciously or unconsciously holding them, in 
reverent awe and admiration of it. 



3?0 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

What, then, is the real attraction of God's house, 
what the true glory of the sanctuary ? 

Now, whatever, that attraction may be, or in what- 
ever that glory may consist, it is evident that the recog- 
nition or perception of it is depending altogether upon 
the existence of a corresponding susceptibility or power 
of discernment in the beholder. This corresponding, 
inward susceptibility or power of discernment is indis- 
pensable. For, however attractive the House of God 
in itself considered, however entrancing its loveliness 
or inspiring its characteristics, unless there be-in the 
heart of the observer something corresponding to all 
this, nothing of admiration is experienced. It is to him 
as though it were not. 

Indeed the recognition of any external quality or 
influence whether in nature or in art always presupposes 
the existence of a corresponding internal susceptibility. 
Amid the blaze of noonday, without the light preceiv- 
ing-eye, darkness shrouds the world. We may indeed 
conceive of a man standing amid the most glowing and 
transcendent exhibitions of natural beauty and yet 
totally unconscious of his real position, or of any emo- 
tions beyond the ordinary, but only upon the supposition 
that his tastes and sympathies are wholly unequal to the 
occasion and sadly out of conformity with the spirit of 
the scene. There are not wanting those to whom na- 
ture is a perpetual revelation of beauty, of symmetry, 
and love, a revelation of God, while to others it is 
simply a blank, transmitting no ray of the divinity, 
meaningless, without inspiration, without power. We 
talk of the beauties of nature, of her charming land- 
scapes, of her fields and flowers, but what avail all her 
symphonies and all her coloring to the soul inharmoni- 
ous and unsusceptible. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 371 

The same is true of artistic beauty. Thus, for in- 
stance, you, in company with another individual, enter 
a gallery of splendid paintings. The most finished 
productions of the art are here on exhibition. Here 
are pictures which have attracted the eye and elicited 
the admiration of the world, pictures embodying the 
very soul of genius and a perfection of truthfulness 
and skill which its powers have never surpassed. And, 
now, as the power of some sublime representation arrests 
your eye and stirs the very depths of your soul, you 
turn to your companion saying, ' 1 See this noble picture. 
This is the very triumph of genius, this is the very per- 
fection of art." You expect him to share in your en- 
thusiasm to participate in your joy. But to your utter 
astonishment your companion sees nothing, feels noth- 
ing, admires nothing, but simply says as he turns away 
to the contemplation of some mere daub, " It's nothing 
very remarkable, I see nothing peculiar in it," wholly 
unconscious of that deep thrill of ecstasy that inspires 
your own heart. What now, I ask, are the emotions 
with which you regard that man. With mingled feelings 
of pity and contempt you exclaim, "Why that man has 
no soul ! " Now the application is easy. That picture, 
so much admired by you and so little by your com- 
panion, is really and essentially admirable. It is such 
in the estimation of the most competent judges. It has 
stood the test of centuries and comes down to you as 
meeting the approval of the most cultivated taste of all 
the ages. W here then is the difficulty ? Not in the 
picture, but in the perception of the beholder. For 
what avail all the beauty and skill of the painting if we 
have no eye to see, no heart to appreciate its excellence. 
And what avail all the attractions of God's house if we 
enter its courts with hearts dead to its loveliness. Two 



372 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

men enter the sanctuary of Cod, one a real Christian 
with tastes and inclinations spiritualized and soul at- 
tuned to harmony with all the associations of that holy 
place, the other a mere worldling, with unspi ritual, in- 
sensate heart, and in sympathy only with wordly aims. 
How differently are they impressed. As the Christian 
enters within its hallowed courts, there suddenly gathers 
upon his heart the weight of a wondrous and an in- 
discribable power. 

The opening heavens around him shine 
With beams of sacred bliss. 

To his quickened perceptions beauty is kindling all 
around him. the beauty of holiness, the beauty of the 
Lord. A solemn gladness fills his soul. 

Heaven comes down his soul to greet 
While glory crowns the Mercy Seat. 

and enamored of the vision he exclaims, " How ami- 
able are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. " While the 
mere worldling, whose stupid sensibilities and groveling 
propensities, no power can control, no divinity charm, 
turns away from all its soul-entrancing loveliness, un- 
moved, unsanctified, unblessed. Here, too. it may be 
said, and with mournful emphasis. The man has no 
soul. There is in him no susceptibility of the true 
glory of the sanctuary. 

Now we all know very well, that even the attractions 
of the world would be wholly unrecognized, or at least, 
practically uninfluential upon the supposition of a right 
state of the heart, even as we find them, to have been 
in the case of the Saviour, to whom the Prince of this 
world came and found nothing in him. From an ex- 
ceeding high mountain he showed him all the kingdoms of 
the world, and the glory of them, but of their attractions 



I 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. . 373 

he found no guilty susceptibility in the immaculate Son 
of God. The assaults of Satan, and of the world, upon 
our integrity as Christians, are successful only through 
the lurking susceptibility of our hearts to their enchant- 
ments. Hence, even, as an invitation to a man of gen- 
eral rectitude and habitual sobriety, to attend the revel- 
ries of the drunkard, would meet with no encouraging re- 
sponse, so, likewise would the solicitations of virtue be 
totally ineffectual as an inducement to its practice, were 
there no tendencies, superinduced in our natures, cor- 
responding with its lofty principles. In the latter, as 
in the former case, the disposition of the heart would 
be found averse to the design of the invitation. 

Hence, wherever a man is found attracted uniformly 
to the House of God, and to the practice of the duties 
connected therewith, that very fact indicates an inward 
susceptibility of its charms, a latent spiritual aptitude for 
the associations of that holy place, and a tendency, sway- 
ing him to its ennobling employments. And it is in the 
absence of this latent spiritual aptitude, this ennobling 
tendency of the soul, that we recognize the cause of 
that sad neglect of the public worship of God, of which 
so many are guilty. 

For instance, I met a man the other day who told me 
that he had not been in a church for twenty years. His 
confessionstrangely impressed my mind, and stereotyped 
itself in my memory. It seemed, indeed, from his own 
showing, that he had been almost everywhere else ; that 
he had been in perils by land, and in perils by sea : that 
he had been in taverns often, and in places of debauch 
ery and vice, innumerable ; in theatres and gambling 
saloons and lottery offices, and twice, at least, in the 
graveyard, whither he had followed his wife and only 
child, but, poor man, he had not been in a church for 



374 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

twenty years. This man, my brethren, is but the rep- 
resentative of a large class of persons, who, even in 
this land of churches, and gospel institutions, are 
scarcely ever found in the House of God, a class of per- 
sons, over whose sensuous hearts the real attraction of 
God's House can exert no controlling power ; a class in 
whose stolid natures, a susceptibility of that attraction 
does not exist, and upon whose ear any invitation to at- 
tend the sanctuary of God, consequently falls fruitless 
and unheeded, even as love's soft whispers on the dull, 
cold ear of death. 

But on the contrary, where this latent spiritual apti- 
tude, of which we speak, is perfect, and this ennobling 
tendency of the soul, strongly marked, there is exhib- 
ited, not only the strictest fidelity in attendance upon 
the public worship of God, but there is also experi- 
enced by the soul, in the exercises connected therewith, 
the very highest enjoyment of which, in its present con- 
dition it is capable. Under such circumstances, the 
Sabbath is truly a delight, the holy of the Lord, a type, 
a pledge, and a prelibation of the rest of heaven, while 
the invitation to enter the sanctuary of God, which it 
ever brings, falls not upon the Christian's ear, as a mere 
dead inoperative sound, but with a thrilling power, as 
the voice of God, waking him from his earthly reveries, 
to the recognition of his immortality andkinship with the 
skies, to aspirations for a higher life, calling him away 
from the pursuit of the secular, and the enjoyment of 
the ordinary bounties of heaven, to the pursuit of the 
eternal and the enjoyment of the far richer banquet of 
redeeming love. Neither to the Christian does this in- 
vitation come, as a mere appeal to his understanding, 
or as addressed simply to his sense of duty, but down 
into the very depths of his nature it descends, waking 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 375 

through all his moral being, sweet and kindly answering 
echoes, filling it with a mighty and a sympathetic joy, 
finding utterance only, in the rapturous words of the 
Psalmist. "I was glad when they said unto me, Let 
us go into the House of the Lord. " 

Admitting then the necessity of a corresponding 
inward susceptibility in order to the recognition of the 
real attraction of God's house, I now proceed to in- 
quire what constitutes that attraction; that secret mys- 
terious power that ever allures to the sanctuary of God, 
and to its sacred altars attaches the hearts of men. And 
i. It is evident that the real attraction of God's 
house is not by any means to be recognized in any thing 
addressing itself simply to our sensibilities, or to the 
aesthetic tendencies of our nature. 

It is not to be found in anything simply material or 
artistic in its character. Vainly do we seek for it in the 
mere outward visible structure of the sanctuary, how- 
ever eligibly situated or superbly furnished, however 
costly its design or exquisite its workmanship. For if 
so, the only requisite susceptibility of the attractions of 
God's house would be the power of the natural vision, and 
taste sufficient to recognize its conformity to the rules 
of art. All that could be attained in the way of artistic 
skill and beauty, in the building of the sanctuary, we 
know that the church of Rome has ever labored to ren- 
der subservient to her purposes of self-aggrandizement. 
With all that is grand in design or gorgeous in execu- 
tion, with every form of magnificent architecture, from 
the rude Gothic to the rich Corinthian, with the column 
and dome and costly architrave, with sculptured orna- 
ment and painted legend, with long drawn aisle and 
richly decorated altars does she make her sensuous ap- 
peal to the world, thus attracting to her communion 



376 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

multitudes of those over whose hearts the higher attrac- 
tions of God's house can exert no power. That a lib- 
erality commensurate with our means should ever be 
displayed, and in every way made to minister to com- 
fort and convenience : that the principles of art are not 
to be disregarded, nor the refinements of taste ignored 
in the building of the sanctuary no one will deny. But, 
after all, these traces of the earthly are by no means 
essential. The true light of the sanctuary is not in 
them. To the real attraction of God's house the wealth 
of Croesus and the genius of a Michael Angelo can add 
nothing. Even where there traces of the earthly exist 
in their highest perfection, they are from the Christian's 
eye concealed by the overshadowings of a superior 
glory. For it is the province of Christianity to throw 
over all these terrestrial charms the graces of divinity. 
Yea, independent even of every transient ornament or 
earth-born attraction, whether of wealth or of skill, it 
invests in more than palace splendors the humblest 
place in which the Christian entertains with hospitality 
the object of his affections and bathes in a beauty in- 
visible to the natural eye and unrecognized by the nat- 
ural taste the rudest structure love ever erected or 
devotion consecrated to the worship of Almighty God. 

2. So neither is the real attraction of God's house 
to be recognized exclusively in the outward forms and 
ceremonies of the church, as connected therewith, and 
as they address themselves simply to the taste or sensi- 
bilities of the worshiper. Doubtless to many there is 
no higher charm connected with the public worship of 
God than the mere solemnity and pathos incident to its 
imposing ceremony. In the spirit-stirring anthems of 
the sanctuary; in her fervent prayers, the outgushing of 
infinite desires ; in her solemn sacraments, with all their 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. B7*7 

tender reminiscences of dying love ; in her stated re- 
unions and blending of hearts in the worship of a com- 
mon Saviour ; in her associations hallowed as the home 
and memories of childhood, as well as in all her elo- 
quent and volume-speaking ministries, there must be 
somewhat to move upon the great deep of the soul and to 
open therein the fountain of all human sympathies. 
Of the power of the sanctuary in this respect, no refined 
nature, however unspiritualized, can be totally insensi- 
ble. Nay ! Subjected to its influence, the savage him- 
self cannot fail to be impressed. But this power is 
simply natural, and he who is conscious of no other, 
fails to recognize the distinguishing charm of the house 
of God. The imposing ceremonies of the sanctuary, 
so powerfully eliciting the sympathies even of the man 
of the world, but which to him are fraught with no 
higher good, are to the Christian but the means through 
which he attains to a realization far nobler and sublime 
— a realization of beauty and of power of which the 
carnally minded can have no conception. 

Of these ceremonies, the carnally minded makes his 
boast. To him they are not secondary, but ultimate, 
a sort of parade or outward show to be gazed at and 
admired, while to the Christian they are always subor- 
dinate, but means of grace, in other words, but the 
windows through which the real attraction of God's 
House is discerned, the windows through which the 
light of heaven, radiating from its high altar is let in 
upon the vision of His soul, through which he catches 
glimpses of that more excellent glory, which in the 
upper sanctuary, is yet more fully to be revealed, and 
the scintillations of which, even now, make amiable 
these earthly Tabernacles of the Lord of Hosts. The 
outward forms and ceremonies of the church, I say, are 

25 



378 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

but so many windows to the eve of the soul. They 
create none of the splendors they transmit. In them- 
selves they are dark and rayless. In their proper 
places, and subordinated to their legitimate uses, these 
windows are indeed, beautiful, even to the eye of sense, 
attractive, even to the unspiritualized beholder. He 
gazes upon them, admires them, and is satisfied. Nay, 
he eulogizes them. "What splendid windows," he 
says. How tastefully designed, how gorgeous their 
colorings, how exquisitely carved, their workmanship, 
how transparent and delicate their glass. " But he never 
thinks of their real design, never employs them for their 
legitimate purpose, but carelessly lifts the curtain over 
them, never looking through them into the regions of 
light and beauty beyond. The Christian, however, 
though no less conscious of the beauty of these win- 
dows, thoughtfully aware of all the taste, and elegance, 
and skill they display, nevertheless recognizes their real 
purpose. He knows that windows are made to let the 
light in, to look through, and to see what is to be seen. 
And with conviction of their real design, he avails him- 
self of them for the most extended and delightful obser- 
vation. He looks through them into the regions beyond, 
catching glimpses of the outlying world of Christian ex- 
perience, a world of wonders and of beauties infinite, a 
world where all things are living, and all things are sing- 
ing, a world flaming with light and rapturous with love. 

3. Neither, indeed, is the real attraction of God's 
House to be recognized in anything addressing itself 
simply to the intellect, or understanding of the wor- 
shiper. It is not, indeed denied, but that the services 
of the sanctuary are all eminently rational. There is, 
in these services, much to interest the understanding, to 
quicken the intellect, to awaken thought, to kindle the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 3T9 

imagination, to exhaust, indeed, the whole man. And 
doubtless, to many, this is the chief attraction of the 
House of God. It furnishes mental stimulant. It is a 
sort of curriculum, or training school for the mind, in 
which, in contact with loftiest themes, its powers un- 
fold, and into the regions of the infinite, extend their 
sway. In the great scheme of human redemption, 
whether considered simply as an idea from all eternity, 
conceived in the mind of Deity, and in the Old and 
New Testaments, gradually unfolded, or as a fact in the 
history of our race gradually realized, in the vastness 
of its problems in the compass of its designs, and in the 
grandeur of its issues, which things the angels desire to 
look into and which, in the sanctuary, are constantly ob- 
truded upon his contemplations, there is presented even 
to the natural man, an attraction under the power of 
which he is not unfrequently induced to enter within its 
hallowed courts. 

But the ultimate power of the sanctuary is not in 
this. Its real attraction is something vastly more im- 
portant, vastly more profound. It does not appeal to 
the outward senses merely, not merely to the emotional 
nature, nor yet to the understanding, simply, but to the 
the heart of the worshiper, to the moral nature of the 
man. The real attraction of God's House is spiritual. 
It is not a natural, but a moral splendor, a hidden 
glory, that rests on these altars, a glory let down from 
the upper sanctuary, a splendor trailing in the pathway 
of the Son of God, going forth to seek and to save that 
which was lost, a light to which the eye of the artist 
can never penetrate, which the reason of the philosopher 
can never comprehend. There is music here, but only 
for the practiced ear, there is beauty here, but only for 
the discerning eye. 



380 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Would you, then, attain to a' distinct apprehen- 
sion of the real attraction of God's House, to a clear 
perception of the true glory of the sanctuary. Look 
not then, to these earthen walls, or to any transient 
light that may invest these altars. Nay, but anoint 
thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayst see. For 
only to the anointed vision is the hidden glory revealed. 

A thing of splendor, truly, was that ancient tem- 
ple, for the building of which such ample preparations 
were made by David. In his own words, it was "exceed- 
ing magnifical of fame and of glory throughout all 
countries." In the words of Solomon, it was "wonder- 
ful, great." It was a palace not for man, but for God, 
a combination of all beauties, natural and artistic, to 
the production of which contributed to the utmost the 
wealth and genius of the most renowned and cultivated 
period inthe history of the Jewish nation. It wassimplya 
material expression of the religious sentiment of our 
race, a grander than which never lifted its pinnacle to 
the skies. Three years devoted to preparation — seven 
to actual building — and in the completed edifice was 
realized Israel's long-cherished hope, beautiful for 
situation, the joy of the whole earth — mighty its bul- 
warks — lofty its towers. Invested in burnished gold 
and thickly set with precious stones and stones of divers 
colors, it sat like a crown of glory on the summit of 
Zion reflecting its joyous splendors on all the land. 

But these mere outward splendors were not by any 
means the highest attraction of that ancient temple. 
Not for these chiefly sighed the captive Jew, as by the 
rivers of Babylon he sat down and wept. Not for these 
chiefly sighed Israel's exiled monarch, as from the land of 
Jordan and of the Hermonites and from the hill Mizar 
he remembered God, and lifted to him his cry. Nay, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 381 

the real attraction of that ancient temple, that which en- 
shrined it in the deepest affections of the captive Jew, 
and led him to prefer it above his chief joy, was the fact, 
that there the Deity was localized, that God was known 
in its palaces for a refuge. That " out of Zion the per- 
fection of beauty God had shined." This was its essen- 
tial beauty, this was its ultimate glory. His vision rested 
not on spire or dome or arch or marble colonnade, but 
penetrated even to the Holy of Holies, enamored of 
the Shekinah, cloud-like investing the Ark and the 
Mercy-seat. 

And as he who had gazed only upon the external 
temple, enamored only of its outward beauty, at- 
tained not to the perception of its real and essential 
glory as manifested in the Holy of Holies, so he who 
is content to stand simply amid the outward light of 
the Sanctuary, conscious of nothing beyond the mere 
appeal it makes to his sensibilities or to his understand- 
ing, must ever fail of that real and essential attraction 
of God's House, revealed only to the enlightened vision 
and which constitutes the chief joy of the true spiritual 
worshiper. Indeed he enters not the true Sanctuary of 
God. He stands only in the outer court. His vision 
is limited by the terrestial and the gross. The true 
glory is within the vail. He may indeed be enraptured 
by the outward splendors of the Sanctuary, by the 
magnificence of its external decoration. He may ad- 
mire the beauty of its design, the strength and massive- 
ness of its materials, and with the disciples who came 
to the Master to show him the buildings of the temple, 
may exclaim, "See what manner of stones and what 
buildings are here." Nay, more than this, turning 
away from what is merely external and artistic to the 
more essential forms and ceremonies connected with 



382 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the worship of God, his soul may kindle with the in- 
spiration of its anthems — it may wake into a conscious 
glowing sympathy with the lofty sentiments of its 
its ritual, and for the moment self-oblivious, be swayed 
only by a feeling of awe, of mystery, and of divinity. 
Yes, all this he may see, all this admire, all this enjoy, 
and yet never attain to the slightest perception of the 
true glory of the Sanctuary— never for a moment stand 
within the inner court, 

Where God His mildest glory shows, 
And makes his grace distill. 

The real attraction of God's house then is that spe- 
cial glory therein revealed to the heart of every sin- 
cere worshiper. In every age of the world there has 
been a special glory connected with the Sanctuary of 
God. In visible splendor it sat above the wings of the 
cherubim that overshadowed the Mercy-seat in the an- 
cient tabernacle, called emphatically the dwelling place 
of Jehovah's glory. Then afterwards in the temple at 
Jerusalem. This was a glory visible even to the eye 
of sense and seems, indeed, to have been specially 
attendant on all the places of public worship at one 
time in the history of the Jewish theocracy, "And the 
Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount 
Zion and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day 
and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for upon all 
the glory shall be a defense." Thus speaking of the 
Jews, Paul says, "To whom pertaineth the adoption 
and the glory." This glory is what the Psalmist calls 
"The beauty of the Lord," and to which he refers 
when he says, " One thing have I desired of the Lord 
that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of 
the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 383 

of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." And again 
when he says, "O worship the Lord in the beauty of 
holiness." In which expression there is doubtless, as 
Dr. Clarke informs us, "an allusion to the beautiful 
appearance of the assembled Israelites as in what is 
called the tabernacle of David, they stood immediately 
before the Ark and worshiped God, all illuminated and 
resplendent with the outbeaming and reflected radiance 
of the Shekinah, as it filled the tabernacle with the 
brightness of a transparent and sometimes overwhelm- 
ing glory." Indeed it were something to be a Jew were 
it only to be thus robed in the splendors of the She- 
kinah. 

But that which I am just now most concerned to 
know is whether that glory all passed away with the 
old dispensation. Did these immaculate splendors all die 
out with the old theocracy, and so vanish as to return 
no more? Had glory in heaven become a commodity 
so scarce as that God had to withdraw even the stinted 
measure of it, hitherto vouchsafed the world, in order 
to supply the deficiency ? Had the angels so worn out 
their habiliments of light as that God had to gather up 
and take back what of glory was yet remaining on earth 
and with it weave new garments for them ? Had 
heaven been reduced to this ? Was there not glory 
enough to spread over all the ages ? Where, then, I 
ask, is all the glory of the past — what has come of 
it? Has it vanished? Nay it cannot be that it has 
departed forever, leaving us in darkness, and in tears 
to worship God within these cold walls and around these 
base and unblest altars. Did not the prophet say that 
the glory of this latter house should be greater than 
the glory of the former? And has not the Apostle 
said, comparing the two dispensations, that "even 



384 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

that which was made glorious had no glory in this 
respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For 
if that which is done away, is glorious, much more 
that which remaineth. is glorious. '' Where then is the 
glorv of the past — where the Shekinah of our taber- 
nacle ? I look to find it on these altars, but I see it not. 
Is not this the house of God, the Tabernacle of the 
Most High? Then it ought to be here. I look again, 
but my dull senses perceive it not. Brethren, if any 
of you have caught a glimpse of it, show it me that I 
may see it too. Or is the intercepting vale of un- 
belief still on your hearts ? O thou that dwellest be- 
tween the Cherubim, shine forth. 

The vail that hides Thy glory rend, 
And here in saving power descend, 

And fix Thy blest abode : 
Here to our hearts Thyself reveal, 
And let each waiting spirit feel 

The presence of our God. 

Yes. blessed be God, the vail is rent, it is lifted 
away, the films have fallen from my eyes. I see the 
more excellent glory now. Like sunlight through the 
rifted cloud it breaks upon my spirit's vision. I feel it 
now. Its invisible splendors compass me about, and 
over all our hearts and over all this workmanship of 
your hands, throws the light, the glorious light of im- 
mortality. Thank God, I no longer stand an unblest 
worshiper in the outer court of the Tabernacle of the 
Most High, but by the new and the living way, I find 
access to the very Holy of Holies, and all kindling with 
divine love and all lit up with the glory of the Shekinah 
radiating from above the Mercy-seat, exultingly ex- 
claim, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 



385 



"The opening heavens around me shine 
With beams of sacred bliss, 
If Jesus shows His mercy mine 
And whispers, I am His. 

There has been a transfer of glory then, from the 
Old to the New Testament dispensation, from the 
Tabernacle to the Church of the living God. The 
ages have passed away, but the glory lingers. With 
reference to the Church of the latter dispensation, God 
has said, '•This is My rest forever, here will I dwell, 
for I have desired it. And I will shake all nations, 
and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill 
this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts." This 
promise, O, Thou great Jehovah, we in this moment 
claim in behalf of this Sanctuary. Let this House now be 
filled with glory. And as from the bleakness of the 
world, and the chilling formalities of a mere sensuous 
worship, we pass within its warming, soul-encompassing 
splendors, we envy no Jewish Priest his place in the 
ancient Tabernacle, we sigh not for the symbols of the 
past, for lo, we stand within a holier Temple, and under 
the brightening beams of a more complacent heaven. 

Now it is a fact, to which I would direct your 
special attention, that under the old dispensation, the 
glory of the Lord was chiefly manifested in connection 
with the Ark of the Covenant. And especially, and in 
a most wonderful manner, was this glory displayed on 
the occasion of the introduction of the Ark into the 
Tabernacle erected in the wilderness. Thus, we find, 
that when Moses had reared up the Tabernacle in the 
wilderness, and brought the Ark into the Tabernacle, as 
the Lord commanded him, "then the cloud covered the 
tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord 
filled the Tabernacle, and Moses was not able to enter 



380 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud 
abode thereon, and the glory of God filled the Taber- 
nacle. " Thus, also, was there an overwhelming dis- 
play of the divine glory upon the occasion of the intro- 
duction of the Ark into the Temple at Jerusalem. For, 
as Solomon brought to a close, his dedicatory prayer, he 
said, " Now, therefore, arise O Lord God, into Thy rest- 
ing place, Thou and the Ark of Thy strength, let Thy 
Priests, O Lord God be clothed with salvation, and let 
Thy saints rejoice in goodness." "Now when Solo- 
mon had made an end of praying, the fire came down 
from heaven and consumed the burnt offerings and the 
sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. 
And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire 
came down, and the glory of the Lord filled the^ house, 
they bowed themselves, with their faces to the ground, 
upon the pavement and worshiped and praised the 
Lord, saying, for He is good, for His mercy endureth 
forever. " 

Thus, when Christ, who is the true Ark and Mercy- 
seat, is, by the preaching of the gospel and other 
significant ceremony, introduced into the Sanctu- 
ary of our dispensation, the glory of the Lord is to the 
eye of faith revealed, in the accompanying influences 
of the Holy Spirit. How often, then, has the sacred 
fire from heaven, the fire of the Holy Ghost descended, 
consuming as of old, the burnt offerings and the sacri- 
fices. How often, then, has the vail of unbelief, been 
rent, and each intercepting cloud dispersed, while from 
the glory-beaming countenance of the Son of God have 
radiated upon all our hearts the light of the Father's 
love and the supernal joys of heaven. How often then, 
has the beauty of the Lord, the beauty of holiness 
gathered upon, and invested in more than earthly splen- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 387 

dors, the souls of God's worshipers, shedding amiable 
glory over all the Tabernacle of the Lord of Host. How 
often, then, has God, who commanded the light to shine 
out of darkness shined in our hearts, to give the light 
of the knowledge, of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ. 

God, then my brethren, is the true glory of the Sanc- 
tuary. God in Christ reconciling the world unto Him- 
self, God in His Spirit of life and love, God in His 
saving influences, in His convicting, converting and 
sanctifying power. There is no place so unlovely, so 
inglorious, so lonely, so deserted andbare, asa Sanctuary 
without a God. 

'Tis Paradise when Thou art here 
If Thou depart 'tis hell. 

Nay, build it as you will, adorn it as you hiay, if 
God, the living God, inhabit it not, it were better in 
heaps. Give me rather the bare and rocky summit of 
some ancient Judean hill — the razed foundations of the 
Old Jerusalem, the ruins of the Pantheon, the slightest 
time wasted remnant of the rudest structure of the 
middle ages. Yes for in any one of them there is for me 
far more of interest than there is in the most perfect, gor- 
geous yet Godforsaken temple of modern times. The 
glory of the ancient Tabernacle was the Ark of the Cove- 
nant, the glory of our Tabernacle is God. God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto Himself. He, as I have said, 
is the true Ark and Mercy-seat. 

And, as a resting place for this Ark, you have built 
this house. As David, King of Israel, contrasted his 
own comfortable and prosperous circumstances with 
the exposed and forlorn condition of the Ark of the 
Lord, he said to Nathan, the Prophet, " Lo I 
dwell in a House of Cedars, but the Ark of the cove- 



388 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

nant of the Lord remaineth under curtains." David 
loved the Ark and was grieved that it should thus re- 
main under curtains thus exposed to the insults and 
scorn of its enemies. Hence, it is said, that he sware 
unto the Lord and vowed unto the mighty God of 
Jacob, saying, " Surely I will not come into the Taber- 
nacle of my house, nor go up into my bed. I will not 
give sleep to mine eyes nor slumber to mine eyelids 
until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for 
the mighty God of Jacob." 

And actuated by the spirit of the Psalmist, you also 
resolved not to rest until you had provided a resting 
place for the Ark of the Lord. And let me assure you, 
that wherever there is a true love for Christ, He will 
not want for suitable accommodations. You have ex- 
pended time and labor and money on the building of 
this edifice. It is, thank God, an investment which 
none of you will ever have cause to regret. Whatever 
may come of other investments this, at least, will yield 
you an ample return. Here, some of you will assem- 
ble to worship from Sabbath to Sabbath through the 
years to come— here Jesus will meet you, here comfort 
and bless you, here enlighten, guide and strengthen 
you, here right under the wings of the cherubims you 
will sit, the glory of the Shekinah will beam out upon 
you until through death you shall have passed into the 
light of the upper Sanctuary, 

Where in a nobler sweeter song 

You'll sing his power to save. 

And when you shall have been gathered to your last 
resting places in the quiet grave, your children will 
gather here and in the very places where you now sit, 
worship the God of their fathers until they in turn shall 
go to join you on the other side of the river, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 389 

Where the saints of all ages in harmony meet, 
Transported their Saviour and brethren to greet 
Where the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, 
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul. 

Having, therefore, completed this beautiful taberna- 
cle, what now remains to consummate its glory, but to 
bring in the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, what but 
that Christ should come in. " Now, therefore, arise O 
Lord God, into Thy resting place Thou and the Ark of 
Thy strength. Let Thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed 
with salvation and let Thy saints rejoice in goodness." 

We come, great God, to seek Thy face, 

And for Thy loving kindness wait ; 
And O how dreadful is this place, 

'Tis God's own house, 'tis heaven's gate. 

Tremble our hearts to find Thee nigh 

To Thee our trembling hearts aspire ; 
And lo ! we see descend from high 

The pillar and the flame of fire. 

Still, let it On the assembly stay, 

And all the house with glory fill ; 
To Canaan's bounds point out the way, 

And lead us to Thy holy hill. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Ei)t j&rrtpttiral iifletijoti of Justification 

"How then can man be justified with God?" Job 25 : 4. 

Intimately blended with the grand problem of hu- 
man life and probation is the great question in these 
words presented for consideration. In that state of 
grace indicated by the phrase, " justified with God/' 
do we recognize the natural goal of humanity. From 
this goal humanity first departed, and to this it must 
return, if ever it return to hope, to holiness or to 
heaven. And whether, indeed, such return be possible, 
.and if so, how ; on what ground or by what method, is 
evidently a question profoundly vital in all its bearings. 
Whatever may be thought of many of the almost in- 
finite variety of questions agitating the minds of men, 
this at least can never be looked upon as of trifling 
importance. Indeed in the sober and collective judg- 
ment of the race it, has never been so estimated. 
Though in isolated cases this inquiry may have given 
rise to subtle disquisitions and scholastic strife, yet not 
always as a vain speculation has it been regarded, but 
as a question of life and death, it comes up before us 
to-day, baptized with penitential tears uttered in the 
prayers and embalmed in the sighs of the disconsolate 
of all lands who still yearn for its solution. From 
earliest ages down even to the present has this ques- 

390 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 391 

tion forced itself upon the attention of mankind. It 
is impossible that it should be otherwise. For the 
knowledge of the fact that a God exists by whom we 
have been created and to whom we are responsible, 
cannot but lead onward to an inquiry as to the rela- 
tion in which we stand to him. Were it but a 
human tribunal before which we were about to stand 
in judgment, the inquiry most natural under the cir- 
cumstances would be, "How can I be justified, how 
acquitted or treated as innocent there?" But amenable 
as we all are in the court of heaven and to the Judge 
of all the earth, how much more appropriate to the 
condition and destiny of each the solemn question, 
" How can I be justified with God, how stand absolved 
and acquitted in his sight, be found in a state of favor 
and acceptance with him, be reckoned and treated as 
just and righteous by him ? 

"How then can man be justified with God? Is 
justification with God possible? If so, how, on what 
ground, by what method ? 

We might, indeed, here, stop to contemplate this 
question from the position occupied by the votary of 
mere natural religion, or as propounded by scepticism. 
And in order to this, we must shut up the Bible, and 
putting it far away from us, retire into those dreary, 
glacial-like regions, where the light of its inspiration 
never falls, and there surrendering overselves exclu- 
sively to the tuitions of nature, seek amid her contra- 
dictory voices, a solution of this, certainly the most 
vital problem that has ever burdened the heart, or 
stimulated the inquiries of an anxious race. True, in 
these regions, one should have no sense of loneliness, 
for the dwellers here are many. But though assuming 
the most advantageous position possible to the votary, 



392 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUT). 

of mere natural religion, there comes to our question- 
ings, as to the possibility of man's justification with 
God, no satisfactory response. 

Thus to the sceptical Shuhite, by whom the inquiry 
of the text was originally propounded, nature evidently 
uttered no encouraging word. From all her suns and 
stars she reflected no light upon the question that per- 
turbed his heart. The very spirit of the inquiry, is that 
of utter hopelessness, implyingasit does, the existence of 
some impassable barrier, rendering impractible, the at- 
tainment of the desired goal. Standing as he did, away 
back there amid the dimness of the distant and the fast 
receding anti-Christian centuries, this ancient moralist 
had evidently surrendered himself exclusively to the 
teachings of the material universe. Nature was his 
Bible. With no ordinary degree of intelligence, had he 
pondered her mighty pages, but in all had traced not a 
line in the least, significant of the fact, that man can, 
by any possibility be justified with God. This is evi- 
dent from the very design of the argument, as in the 
chapter before us presented, and of which the test is 
but the conclusion, which was simply to supplant in 
the mind of his friend, the afflicted Job, the conviction 
to which he had all along, with the greatest tenacity, 
clung, namely, that he was already in the divine favor, 
actually justified with God, the severity of his suffer- 
ings, and the mystery of them to the contrary, notwith- 
standing. Despite the assaults of Satan, and the sus- 
picions of his friends in this conviction thoroughly 
grounded, stood Job sublimely immovable. "Till I 
die I will not remove mine integrity from me. My 
righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go, my heart 
shall not reproach me so long as I live." "Impossi- 
ble," says Bildad. To him the claim of the patriarch 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 390 

to justification in the sight of God was simply prepos- 
terous, an unwarrantable assumption against which he 
felt himself bound to protest, i{ Impossible, " he con- 
tended. The realization of the divine favor, as in the 
claim of the patriarch involved, was, in his judgment, 
eternally precluded by the majesty and the holkiess of 
Jehovah, attributes of His nature so infinite as to ren- 
der any hope of acceptance with him on the part of a 
frail and sinful mortal, absolutely out of the question. 
Thus eulogistically descanting upon these attributes the 
eloquent sceptic would extinguish forever the hope of a 
suffering saint. As though he had said to Job, " Dost 
thou still presume on thy friendship with God. and 
claim to be justified in His sight. All nature rebukes 
thy audacity. Think only of the infinite majesty of Je- 
hovah and of thine own imbecility, in contrast with 
that majesty. Dominion and fear are with Him. He 
maketh peace in His high places. Is there any num- 
ber of His armies, and on whom doth not His light 
arise? How then, can man be justified with God ? 
Or, if thy audacity is not rebuked in the presence of 
His infinite Majesty think only of His infinite purity as 
contrasted with thine own impurity, and let it annihilate 
thy vanity and restore to thee a sense of thine own in- 
significance and consequent folly, in thus presuming to 
be justified in His sight. Behold even to the moon 
and it shineth not, yea the stars are not pure in His 
sight. How much less man, that is a worm, and the 
son of man which is a worm. What possible standing 
then, canst thou have with such a God?" 

Thus contemplating the inquiry before us from the 
position occupied by unbelief, or, as propounded 
simply by scepticism, we shall find that it involves a 
negative, and as such, a legitimate conclusion, the only 

26 



394 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

one indeed, which, by the votary of mere natural reli- 
gion, can be consistently maintained. As thus pro- 
pounded I say, it assumes the character of the strongest 
negative and is paramount to the assertion that man 
cannot be justified with God. As found in its connec- 
tion it is simply a declaration of malicious triumph 
against the sublimest aspirations of our race, the sad 
conclusion of an argument every way befitting the faith 
and the hope of an infidelity which, striking from the 
field of its contemplations the throne of the Mediator, 
can view God and man only in the light of the severest 
contrast and which, admitting them to be at variance 
by infinite contrarities, both natural and moral, finds 
all attempts to reconcile them futile and unavailing. 

That man cannot be justified with God is then, it 
seems to me, the only conclusion possible to the votary 
of mere natural religion. 

The great question as to the possibility of man's 
justification with God, however, perplexing, is one which 
even the most radical sceptic is compelled to confront. 
He cannot ignore it. He may, indeed, flatter himself 
with the supposition that this is only a question of re- 
vealed religion and consequently one with which he, as 
a votary of mere natural religion, has nothing to do. 
But is this so? Is this a question to be disposed of 
simply by rejecting the Bible ? Is it less a question of 
natural than of revealed religion ? Is sin less a fact in 
the natural than in the moral world ? Men may indeed 
summarily dispose of divine revelation but not quite so 
easily of the evils for which that revelation proposes a 
remedy. From the antipathy in certain quarters mani- 
fested toward it, one would suppose that the Bible is re- 
sponsible for sin. But the Bible, taken away inter- 
dicted, annihilated would not sin remain a terrible fact 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOXJD. 395 

all the same ? Is there no sense of sin, no groaning 
for redemption from it where the Bible is not? Reve- 
lation is not the only law the transgression of which is 
sin. Are there not laws of nature as well, the works 
of which even the Gentiles show written in their hearts? 
Or, is the votary of mere natural religion oblivious to 
these laws, or of the guilt and wretchedness in which 
their violation has involved the world ? Is there no 
recognition of sin in his creed, no recognition of the 
violation of the instinctive perceptions of right and 
wrong? Alas, we need no Bible to emblazon the fact 
of sin. Too plain and demonstrative are the evidences 
of its existence to admit of a successful contradiction 
or of a rational doubt. As a dismal cloud, it hangs 
upon the page of every history, as a fretting leprosy, it 
cleaves to every human heart. It stalks in our streets 
and is personified in the desperadoes of all lands. We 
have witnessed its withering influence in each shriveled 
tempest-tossed wreck of life's joy and hope and shrunk 
from its blighting shadow as it has flitted over the life, 
deserted form, leaving the mildew of death on the cold 
and shrouded features of those we loved. We have felt 
its relentless goadings in our own hearts and our bur- 
dened spirits have groaned their acquiescence in the 
declaration that " all have sinned and come short of 
the glory of God " as they have trembled under the 
weight of conscious guilt, and the intolerable forebod- 
ings of judgment to come. And is the rejecter of divine 
revelation oblivious to all this? Nay, the fact of the 
existence of that which is called sin even he must rec- 
ognize. And, thus recognizing it, how will he dispose 
of it, how evade its consequences, how be justified 
with God? This is the question that ever confronts 
him and with which, in spite even of his rejection of 



396 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the Bible, he still finds himself compelled to grapple. 

Or, just here, it may be attempted to dispose of this 
whole question by affirming of sin so called, that it is 
nothing in fact, simply imaginary, that it is without any 
moral quality whatever, and consequently cannot, in 
itself, present any serious barrier in the way of man's 
acceptance with God. Or, God, perchance, is conceived 
of simply as a kind parent, an indulgent father, who, 
taking no account of sin, generously clasps to His lov- 
ing embrace all His children, good and bad, indiffer- 
ently, regardless of any moral consideration whatever. 
And yet, even in a supposition so plausible, the sceptic 
finds little relief. The facts are against him. For 
whatever views of the nature of sin may be entertained, 
or conceptions of God cherished, the fact remains and 
must be admitted, that some cause, however tenderly 
designated, does, nevertheless, exist, seriously affecting 
the character of the divine administration of the affairs 
of the universe. Evidently it is not an administration 
in the interests simply of sinless beings. Interpret that 
administration as you will, there is in it much furnishing 
ground for the suspcion that the subjects of it are not al- 
together innocent. The indications are that between 
God and man there is yet pending a great controversy, 
that between them there is yet an unsettled account. For 
that God is now reconciled to man, nature, by her- 
self interpreted, nowhere distinctly affirms. Some, I 
know, claim to have received from her a revelation to 
this effect. But her testimony, to say the least, is 
not uniform. For, though seemingly affirmed in her 
harmonies, it is contradicted in her discords ; though 
penciled by her sunbeams, it is effaced by her light- 
nings. If there be in nature the tokens of the divine 
favor, there are not wanting, also, the tokens of the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 397 

divine displeasure. Or, if man is now justified with 
God, or in a state of favor and acceptance with him, 
what, I ask, must be our readings of nature's great 
volume as it lies outspread before us ? What are we 
to understand by all the natural evils that throng our 
earthly abode and make us their perpetual prey ! 
What mean disease, disaster death and final decay ? 
Are these the tokens of God's friendship, what then 
must be those of his enmity ? 

To the infidel Shuhite, the afflicted Job certainly 
did not present the appearance of one on whom was 
resting especially the divine favor. The victim of dis- 
ease, tortured with pain, an object of loathing and 
disgust, wishing he had never been born, in the ex- 
tremity of his anguish, craving the pity and forbear- 
ance of his friends. He justified with God? "Impos- 
sible," says Bildad, smitten with the lightnings of his 
wrath rather. Only the guilty suffer. God is just. 
He does not afflict the innocent. And to one occu- 
pying the position of Bildad, shrouded in nature's 
night with no Bible, what conclusion other than this 
is possible ? Nay, talk as we will of God giving us 
rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts 
with food and gladness, still, as the votary of mere 
natural religion, I certainly see no method of recon- 
ciling the sufferings we actually endure with what ought 
to be our condition if in a state of favor and accept- 
ance with God. Indeed, that man is not now justified 
with God or treated as just and righteous by him, na- 
ture everywhere proclaims, not more loudly, however, 
in the discords and calamities of the outward world 
than in the universal inward consciousness of the race, 
that in the sufferings we endure we are dealt with only 
in accordance with our real character and moral de- 



398 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

serts. Man feels that naturally he is an alien from 
God, a violater of his law and as such a criminal 
deservedly held at a distance and treated with severity. 
It is useless to deny it. the' voice of God in nature is 
a perpetual arraignment of the race. "Nevertheless I 
have somewhat against thee,' J is the terrible indictment 
legibly written out on the scroll of the universe. 

But as to whether this indictment has been to any 
extent modified or any measures with a view to this 
end instituted, in a word, as to whether any change 
in man's relation with respect to God is possible, 
nature is equally silent, or. if in any instance speak- 
ing hopefully, it is only in language such as the 
rejecter of divine revelation is incompetent to under- 
stand. True, there is in nature much that speaks of 
God, much that speaks of man, somewhat also tes- 
tifying as to the relation in which they stand to each 
other. But of the God-man and of the relation in 
which he stands to both there is nothing. Of him 
there is in nature no word, no prophecy, not even a 
dim foreshadowing. It exhibits only God and man and 
them always in severest contrasts, both natural and 
moral, as sundered by sin standing apart, frowning upon 
each other with an infinite bridgeless chasm between. 

Against the possibility of any reconciliation with 
God, the rejecter of divine revelation, is then, it seems 
to me, compelled to conclude on a two-fold ground. 
And, 

i. On a merely natural ground, on the ground of 
man's natural imbecility and frailty, as contrasted with 
the divine majesty, and power. Irresistibly, does the 
firmly knit argument bear Him on to the disheartening 
conclusion. "Dominion and fear are with Him. He 
maketh peace in His high places, Is there any number 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 899 

of His armies, and on whom doth not His light arise." 
How then, in view of such infinite majesty and power, 
is it possible that man, so imbecile, so frail, should be 
justified with God? Evidently, the design of the argu- 
ment, is to depress man, by exalting Jehovah. And 
this, I hold, is in the absence of divine revelation, 
its natural tendency. For, however truthful these rep- 
resentations of the divine majesty, and power in them- 
selves considered, or however cheering to the believer, 
who can contemplate God, as his Father and friend, 
upon the soul of the unbeliever, who can contemplate 
Him only as his creator and judge, they must ever fall 
with a chilling emphasis. For what is man in a Christ- 
less universe ? Amid vastness so infinite, amid splen- 
dors so imposing, what claim to special recognition 
can he set up ? Sundered from Christ, we are sundered 
from God, and drop into insignificance, of all crea- 
tures, the most helpless, the most abject, the most for- 
lorn. 

Whether two beings, naturally so dissimilar, as God 
and man can ever come into friendly relations or be on 
terms of intimacy with each other, in other words, 
whether the finite, with the infinite can blend frailty 
with omnipotence combine, or humanity with divinity 
unite, is a problem, which only the incarnation of Christ 
can solve. The fact of the incarnation wanting, and it 
would seem that God could no longer have any interest 
in man, nor man in God. Or could man by any possi- 
bility, be induced to rise to the contemplation of the attri- 
butes of Deity, it would only be to find them all arrayed 
against his hopes and his happiness, or at least, so infi- 
nitely removed from himself, as absolutely to overwhelm 
and dishearten him, by an astounding sense of his own 
littleness. Thenindeed, to him would all nature seem 



400 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

rushing forward, the symbol of God's greatness, the 
mountains typical of His immutability, the sun and 
moon, the monuments of His power, the stars and plan- 
ets, the waymarks pointing to His high abode, while in 
all the energies of the creation, whether of grandeur or 
of terror, would be exhibited only the blendings of the 
mysterious, yet diversified operations of the Godhead, 
calculated especially as viewed from his standing point, 
to drive him from beneath the shadow of the everlast- 
ing throne, and to send him forth a friendless atom, 
amid the wastes of eternity, confounded and paralyzed 
by the overwhelming conviction of his own absolute 
nothingness. 

To the unbeliever then, nature unfolds no method 
of approach to God. It only builds up around its vo- 
tary, the evidences of the divine majesty, while upon 
his heart, consciously imbecile and wretched, falls the 
awful frown of that majesty, unbroken by any merciful 
interposition whatever. The fact of the incarnation 
excluded, and man has no standing in the universe. 
All hope, with all method of approach to God is at 
once cut off, and the soul repelled at every point turns 
from its ineffectual struggle with remediless destiny, 
paralyzed and crushed in the vivid apprehension of its 
own insignificance, as contrasted with the inconceiv- 
able greatness of Jehovah, shrieking its despair in the 
language of the text, "How then, can man be justified 
with God ? " 

2. But, especially, is the rejecter of divine revela- 
tion compelled to conclude against the possibility of 
man's acceptance with Crod on a moral ground, on the 
ground of man's natural sinfulness as contrasted with the 
infinite purity of Jehovah. ei Behold even to the moon 
and it shineth not, yea, the stars are not pure in his 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 401 

sight. How much less man that is a worm and the son 
of man that is a worm.'' Here, then, the contrast deep- 
ens into the absolute, exhibiting God and man as occu- 
pying the extremes of purity and impurity, while the 
difficulties in the way of their reconciliation are pro- 
portionately increased. Of this contrast the votary of 
mere natural religion is by no means unconscious. Of 
the one extreme, the extreme of infinite purity he has in 
his idea of God, the abiding transcript and representa- 
tion. Of the other extreme, the extreme of impurity, 
he has, in himself, a perpetual illustration, or, turning 
from himself, he cannot fail of that illustration in the 
fearful panorama of the world's guilt and woe as it 
passes before him. But, alas, this picture of the world's 
depravity, is in his vision, unalleviated by a single ray. 
No light from the skies ameliorates the horrors of the 
scene. 

Does then the unbeliever lift his eyes to heaven it is 
only to find his justification rendered still more hope- 
less by the vast moral distance separating between him 
and his God. That distance, how immense, who can 
estimate it, who will attempt its admeasurement? It is 
limitless. So then, also, must the agency through 
which that distance is overcome be limitless. It must 
extend over all the dreary space, fill up all the mighty 
chasm, intervening between the finite and the infinite, 
bridge completely, the measureless, shoreless abyss. 
But does mere natural religion embody any such agency 
Is it equal to the emergency ? By no means. How 
then limited to its resources can man be justified with 
(rod? From out the voiceless temples of infidelity 
there comes no encouraging response only the hollow 
unsympathizing echo, how can he be justified with God? 
In the Christless reveries of the unbeliever'this question 



40-2 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

is a mystery inexplicable, a problem dark and bewilder- 
ing, amazing his intelligence, mocking forever his at- 
tempt at solution. 

II. But from the sceptic absorbed in his Christless 
reveries, passing on we might stop to contemplate the 
inquiry of the text, from the position occupied by un- 
lightened reason or as propounded by involuntary ig- 
norance. 

The difference between this position and that oc- 
cupied by infidelity is that here is no willful rejection of 
the light, no closing up of the Bible, simply because 
there is no Bible thus to close. Here, too, it is dark, 
very dark, but it is not the darkness of those who shut 
their eyes against the light but the darkness, rather of 
those to whom no light has ever come. As thus pro- 
pounded the inquiry of the text is not the language of 
pride, disdaining the teachings of divine revelation but 
of sincerity rather the expression of the longing ex- 
ploring desire of one who, painfully conscious of dif- 
ficulties, is yet honestly seeking some method by which 
to surmount them. 

In this view of the subject, heathenism, with all her 
religion and philosophy, is but the struggling for solu- 
tion of this one grand and all-absorbing inquiry, "How 
can man be justified with God ? " The soul's soliloquy, 
"Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I might 
come even to His seat." 

Often, indeed, and in almost all variety of forms* 
has this question found utterance in the religion of the 
pagan world. In sacrifices, in penances, in pilgrim- 
ages and in self-inflicted mortifications has it been pro- 
pounded, but in every instance has it failed of a satis- 
factory answer. In vain has the benighted soul sought 
a solution of this question at the mouth of confounded 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 403 

magicians, astrologers and soothsayers, in vain at the 
shrine of the dumb oracle or of its stupid votary. For 
though the worshipers of Baal by whom all heathen- 
dom may be fitly represented, have stood all day long, 
even from the morning dawn until the time of the offer- 
ing of the evening sacrifice, endeavoring with cries and 
contortions and self-inflicted wounds to arrest the atten- 
tion of their sleeping or wandering god, yet there has 
been -'neither voice nor any to answer nor any that re- 
garded." 

But. while to this question, the religion of heathen- 
ism could furnish no satisfactory answer, her philoso- 
phy was by no means more successful. For ages an- 
terior to the dawning of Christianity, philosophy had 
the field all to herself. The results of her labors we 
know. Long since have they passed into history. 
Graphically are they portrayed by Paul, " Because that 
when they knew God they glorified Him not as God. 
neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagi- 
nations and their foolish heart was darkened. Profess- 
ing themselves to be wise, they became fools." The 
little knowledge, originally possessed, was frittered 
away in vain speculations, in idle endeavors to solve the 
enigma of human destiny, the great questions connected 
with man's moral relations independently of any divine 
illumination whatever. Thev began bv ignoring the 
light from heaven, thence proceeded in their independ- 
ent researches until lost amid the growing, bewildering 
mazes of error and darkness, unalleviated by a single 
ray came down upon the whole field of vision. " Such 
the end," says one. "of the highest efforts of human 
reason on the fairest field the world has ever afforded." 

And though seeking for light and succor at the 
shrine of reason, as modernized and empowered 



404 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

by philosophy of a later date, we shall find her char- 
acterized by the same inefficiency. For in determin- 
ing the method of a sinner's justification with God. 
or, indeed, any question involving man's moral rela- 
tions, how slightly is the world indebted to the re- 
searches of modern philosophy. True, the burden of 
determining this method, does not lie with philosophy, 
neither, indeed, to her shrine, exclusively is the world 
compelled to go for light. And yet in every age has 
there been evinced on the part of human reason a 
strange tendency to assume with respect to all ques- 
tions, an independence of divine aid and instruction. 
This tendency is evinced, generally, in the history of 
the race, as it was especially in the conduct of that im- 
pious king, who. always upon any great and unexpected 
emergency, whether in palace or state, whether involv- 
ing his own fate, or that of his empire, gave precedence 
to his magicians, astrologers and soothsayers, tolera- 
ting the presence and teachings of Daniel, inspired of 
God, only when their presumptuous, endeavors had 
failed. It is not then, so much to be wondered at. if 
even in matters of religion, reason, should sometimes 
have assumed an independence of all divinely proffered 
assistance, and vainly endeavored, in the strength of her 
own feeble pinion, to rise into the light of heaven. But 
what of all her independent researches, what new ac- 
cessions to the sum of saving truth? What new con- 
tribution to the science of redemption ? I admit that 
within her own distinctive province, the researches of 
reason have been profound, her discoveries wonderful. 
I know that at her bidding, new lights have reported 
themselves to her vision, and in their designated places, 
now stand sentinel like, in the distant heavens. But 
what new lights have been discovered in the spiritual 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 405 

firmament, or to her vision, reported themselves from 
the moral heavens ? Have not her labors tended rather 
to obscure the lights already there, those elder lights of 
God's own kindling ? I know, indeed, that at her bid- 
ding the hidden paths of earth and ocean, the way of 
the lightning and the flood have been disclosed. But 
what new path to hope and heaven has she unfolded ? 
Has she not rather obscured the olden paths, the paths 
by patriarchs and prophets trod? True, the genius of 
modern philosophy, like some giant power, commis- 
sioned of heaven, has paved for herself an highway to 
the very summit of human attainment, conducting 
thereby, her willing votaries from the low lands of ig- 
norance and superstition, up to the high places of 
science and intellectual freedom, exploring, thence the 
deep designs of nature, and the wisdom of her ways, 
yet never unaided by divine revelation, has she discov- 
ered, or with her votaries, trodden that more subtle 
path, leading up the hill of Calvary, or from that con- 
secrated height, traced the yet deeper designs of God's 
infinite grace, and the untold wonders of His redeeming 
love. Nay ! This is a path far beyond the light of her 
brightest sun, eluding, alike, the touch of her adventur- 
ous feet, and the grand sweep of her eagle eye. Thus, 
from reason's proudest standing point, no hope is 
gained. No ray divine, gilding the surface of the ex- 
panding gloom, betokens our approach to the regions 
of light. From out her crowded temples, comes not a 
solitary echo, bearing an encouraging response to the 
question, How can man be justified with God ? " 

III. And yet, I rejoice to know that this question 
is not unanswerable. What is hidden from the wise and 
prudent, is revealed unto babes. Though nature is 
silent, though her high priests are dumb, God has 



406 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

spoken. Though from the position occupied by infi- 
delity, any satisfactory answer to this question is im- 
possible, aud unenlightened reason must forever fail of 
its solution. I thank God there is another position from 
which this question may be contemplated, an advanced 
position, a position higher even, than that occupied by 
unenlightened reason, a position, a standing point, 
over-topping them all, where clearer, purer light breaks 
in upon the spirit's vision, waxing brighter and brighter, 
even unto the perfect day. 

This is the position occupied by Christianity and 
by all who participate in its saving light and quicken- 
ing power, a lofty mountain height overlooking all the 
summits of earth and to which every traveler, way- 
worn and weary, bewildered and lost in his journey 
through this vale below, must climb before he can find 
himself or tell in what direction lies the home of his 
soul. Here standing, no clouds intercept my vision, 
no doubts perturb my soul. Here, standing on the 
very summit of Calvary, the great observatory of faith, 
shadowed by the cross, with God's open Bible in my 
hand and his eternal spirit in my heart, I can assume 
to answer the question with which otherwise, the 
world's wisdom must ever grapple in vain. Here, in 
this sacred volume I find unvailed and distinctly as in 
the light of a thousand suns revealed, the path leading 
straight to the goal. " Therefore, being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. "'' It is the path of simple faith, its goal, peace 
with God. In this path, walking, my steps never 
falter, never weary. No frightful gulf intervenes. The 
mighty chasm to reason's eye forever bridgeless is by 
the atonement completely spanned, and my approach to 
God made possible through our Lord Jesus Christ. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOtW. 407 

In this path are no evidences of failure, no signs of 
defeat or of baffled endeavor : no cry of dispirited 
millions bewailing their discomfiture. It is crowded 
with the memorials of victory spanned with triumphal 
arches forever ringing with hosannas. This is the path 
the patriarchs trod. In this path Abie's feet were 
planted and here Enoch walked with God. Here are 
the steps of the faith of our father Abraham. And 
how many, walking in the steps of his faith, have be- 
come heirs of his blessing : how many who thus walk 
ing are even now bathing in the gold splendors of a 
conscious reconciliation with God and realizing even 
now the blessedness "of the man to whom the Lord 
will not impute sin." "Therefore, being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." To the soul feeling after God, this one word 
of inspiration is a window in the sky, letting in upon its 
gloom all the splendors of the sunny heavens, to its en- 
raptured vision, disclosing instantly the object of its 
search. Through this open window, looking up, the 
soul's vision reaching into the very court of heaven, 
sees unfolding the mighty process of its deliverance ; 
sees Jesus interceding, the merit of his blood availing, 
God reconciled ; its name in the book of life recorded ; 
the white robe, the victorious palm. 

And in attempting still further to indicate the 
method of man's justification with God as in the Scrip- 
tures unfolded, I notice : 

1. That it is a work divinely done. "Who shall lay 
anything to the charge of God's elect. It is God that 
justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" 

2. That it is a work graciously done. And, first, as 
originating in the free, undeserved spontaneous love of 
God. "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and 



408 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOtft). 

that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. "Being 
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that 
is in Christ Jesus." Of his own nature he was en- 
clined to pity us and to relieve our distresses. The na- 
tive promptings of his paternal heart could not abide 
the barriers that held our world in exile from His 
throne and thus excluded it from the light of His love. 
Hence., from the impulses of an infinite pity He devised 
the plan of human recovery, and at the expense of all 
that was naturally most dear to Himself, provided for its 
execution. Of His own mercy He saved us. "Through 
the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring 
from on high hath visited us. " So that redemption from 
the very first inception of it in the mind of Deity, 
until the subject of it stands robed and crowned amid 
the royal priesthood of the upper sanctuary, is but the 
pure offering of infinite love. 

" Grace first conn ived a w ay 

To save rebellious man, 
And all the steps that grace display 

Which drew the wondrous plan." 

But the justification of a sinner by God is a work 
graciously done in opposition to his justification on the 
ground of innocence. On the ground of innocence, 
none can be justified with Cxod in whose presence the 
moon is shorn of her beams and the angels chargeable 
with folly. -'All have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God; there is none righteous, no, not one.'* 
Man is a sinner ; were he not, were he innocent, his 
justification would no longer be an act of grace, but 
of justice — a necessity. (i To him that worketh is the 
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. " If man 
is innocent, then is he already justified with God. If 
he has never sinned, he has never forfeited his right to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 409 

the divine favor. Under such circumstances, to treat 
him as just and righteous were only to treat him in ac- 
cordance with his real character and moral deserts. 
But, alas, what is to become of us if innocence is the 
only valid ground on which we can rest a plea for jus- 
tification in the sight of God. 

I once stood in the presence of the court, an earthly 
tribunal. There, in his place, sat a young man, a 
criminal indicted for murder, for the murder of his 
own brother and on trial for his life. The evidence 
against him was fearfully convincing. His council, 
eminent in his profession, endeavored by all possible 
means, by every conceivable device and legal subter- 
fuge to excuse and palliate his offence and thus secure 
his acquittal. There were many extenuations. His 
client, he plead, was irresponsible, maddened with the 
fumes of wine, insane when he perpetrated the dreadful 
deed and could not be held rigidly accountable. In 
concluding his argument, he appealed to the sympathies 
of the jury. Pointing to the criminal, he called him, 
"The poor boy, the most unfortunate lad, the only 
living son of a disconsolate mother, the only hope and 
stay of his aged father." Then pointing upward, he al- 
luded most eloquently to the court of heaven, and 
begged the jury to remember that temple where judg- 
ment is always tempered with mercy, and that, in their 
findings, they should be controlled accordingly. 

But, how profoundly was I impressed, and the force 
of this, the most touching appeal to which I ever list- 
ened, suddenly broken by the stern words of the prose- 
cutor in the case, as he arose and addressing the jury, 
said, " Forget not, gentlemen, where you are. The 
learned counsel has referred you to the Court of heaven, 
to that temple where justice is always tempered with 
■ 27 



410 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

mercy. But, this, gentlemen, is not the temple of 
mercy. This is the temple of justice, of stern unbend- 
ing justice — the innocent only are acquitted here. The 
guilty must be condemned. Here law reigns and jus- 
tice is enthroned. It is not mercy, but justice that is 
dispensed here. He that is acquitted here, must be inno- 
cent, and, if not innocent, his acquittal is unjust." 

The sinner, it is true, is a criminal under arrest, to 
the law of God. on trial for his life. The evidence 
against him is fearfully convincing. The Word of God, 
the Spirit, his own conscience, all proclaim him guilty. 
A thousand pangs of remorse forebode inevitable convic- 
tion. But, thank God, the temple in which he is tried 
is the temple of mercy. Hence, though guilty, he may 
be justified. -'-'And the peculiarity in his case is that 
though thus guilty, confessedly guilty, his acquittal is 
just. " Evidently, then, the justification ot the sinner by 
God is a work graciously done. It is not in his case 
granted as a legal right but simply as a gracious bene- 
diction. It is not a release on the ground of innocence 
but a divine, unmerited pardon, conferred on other 
grounds, and yet, in their nature, such as render that 
pardon every way just and honorable. 

3. The justification of the sinner by God is a work 
not only graciously but also righteously (lone. Justifi- 
cation is a law term, having reference to judicial pro- 
ceedings. And it is with a singular propriety that the 
term justification is employed by the sacred writers to 
denote the pardon of sin, indicating, as it does, the 
legality of the process, that it is done according to law, 
" For in the use of the term justification we are taught, " 
then, says one, 4 'That the pardon of sin by God is not 
an act of prerogative done above law but a judicial pro- 
cess done consistently with law. Contemplating God, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 411 

simply as a Father, we admit, that He might grant for- 
giveness merely from the dictates of His own feelings 
and in defiance even of the claims of justice, but, 
viewing Him as a Judge, He can grant it only in accord- 
ance with law. Mercy may indeed pardon, but right- 
eousness, and it, alone, can justify. But. in the justifi- 
cation of the sinner, we see blended the mild compas- 
sion of the Father with the stern rectoral character of 
the Judge. For, through the inteposition of Christ and 
by virtue of the harmonizing power of the cross, the for- 
giveness of sin by God is rendered an act, not only of 
mercy but also of justice. Christ died in the sinners 
stead, a satisfaction to the law, that Cod might be just 
and the justifierof him that believeth in Jesus. Hence, 
it is written, " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all un- 
righteousness." 

The pardon of sin, on the part of God, is no loose, 
irregular proceeding. It is done only on principle, 
only in view of ample amends having been made to the 
divine law, only in consideration of a substitution, in- 
finitely meritorious, only through our Lord Jesus 
I 'hrist, that is only through His sufferings in the sin- 
ner's stead. And not until such a substitution was 
brought forth, was the justification of the sinner possi- 
ble. For, however intense the yearnings of infinite 
compassion toward our earth, it could avail nothing in 
our personal justification, so long as such an act could 
not be reconciled with the claims of the divine law and 
the maintenance of the divine honor. Until then, 
mercy still lingered around the throne of God, as if 
loath to leave her high and unsullied abode. Around 
our earth, justice had thrown her relentless chain, bind- 
ing it fast in an orbit of darkness, infinitely removed 



412 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

from God, the center of light and joy. Heaven's in- 
sulted law transformed into an instrument of death, 
clamored for a vindication. But lo, suddenly we are 
called to the contemplation of an unexpected deliver- 
ance. The Son of God interposes. He assumes our 
nature and our debt, and thus becomes our ransom. 
Vengeance is wreaked on him, that mercy may be lav- 
ished on us. In Him the law is vindicated, justice sat- 
isfied, the door of heaven thrown open wide, and to our 
God-forsaken world, mercy once more speeds her joy- 
ous way. Here, then, is satisfaction, infinite satisfac- 
tion. Here is ground for pardon, ground all sufficient 
and eternal. On this ground only, can it be dispensed. 
It is a work righteously done. 

In the use of the term, justification, then, the im- 
age of a Court of Judicature is at once presented to 
the mind, a Court in which God, Himself, sits as Judge, 
and in every line of whose countenance is written the 
fearful words, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." 
But lo, within this Court, and in the presence of 
this Judge, is standing a poor sinnner, penitently 
pleading for justification, saying, "O Lord, pardon 
mine iniquity, for it is great." But turning his eyes 
in the direction of the Judge, he sees, lying open be- 
fore him, the pages of the great statute books of eter- 
nity, in one of which he beholds, inscribed in charac- 
ters of fire. " Cursed is everyone that continueth not 
in all things which are written in the book of the law to 
do them." Then with downcast eyes the poor crimi- 
nal smites upon his breast, saying, " God be merciful 
to me a sinner." But he only receives for answer, and 
in thunder tones, the words of the law ; "The man that 
doeth these things shall live by them." To this the 
trembling penitent can only respond, " The law is holy 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 413 

and the commandment holy, and just and good, but I 
am carnal, sold under sin." Then from the depths 
of his anguish-riven spirit he groans, "Oh, wretched 
man, that I am, who shall deliver me, how can I be 
justified with God." When lo, suddenly, a third per- 
son makes his appearance. And who is this ? Who ? 
It is man's intercessor, the sinner's advocate, the Lord, 
from heaven. And, oh, what an advocate is this. Be- 
hold him standing there all covered with sacrificial 
wounds, all dripping with atoning blood. Wisdom 
flows from his lips and the law of kindness is on his 
tongue. He interposes his plea. Angels bending from 
their throne in silence wait to hear, "My Father," he 
exclaims — for, though, thou art the sinners judge, thou 
art my Father. He is thy rebellious subject, but I am 
thine only Son. He is the transgressor of thy law, but 
I am its atoning sacrifice. He stands covered with 
guilt, but my vesture is blood. He is cursed, but I 
was made a curse for him. For it is written, "Cursed 
is everyone that hangeth on a tree. " I hung on that tree 
three dreadful hours. I there bore the agony, the guilt, 
the pain of his soul's redemption. Behold the vouchers ; 
these wounded hands and feet, this pierced side. He 
deserves to die, but I, undeserving, in his stead have 
died. He accepts my intercession in his behalf and 
my merit as his only plea. And hath not mercy com- 
missioned by Thee gone forth, trumpet-tonguecl, and to 
all of Adam's race the royal proclamation given, that 
to all believing in My name, grace and pardon Thou 
wouldst bestow? Father, be mindful of Thy changeless 
word. Father, forgive him then, O Father, forgive." 

The Father hears him pray, 

His clear anointed one ; 
He cannot turn away 

The presence of his son., 



4 LI THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Then, sudddenly, strange emotions seize upon that 
penitent's heart and whisperings within of love divine, 
until in transports of joy he exclaims : 

His Spirit answers to the hlood, 
And tells me I am born of God. 
My God is reconciled, 

His pardoning voice I hear : 
He owns me for his child, 
I can no longer fear. 

4. But the justification of the sinner by God is also 
a work conditionally done. "Therefore, being justi- 
fied by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. " To no single truth through divine in- 
spiration to the intelligence of man transmitted is the 
world more greatly indebted than to this. In this doc- 
trine of justification by faith only, do we recognize the 
starting point of all religious development, whether in 
the history of the individual or of the race. In this 
doctrine, intelligently apprehended and experimentally 
realized, originate all those mighty, resistless destiny- 
shaping forces, which, sundering the chains of super- 
stition and of all despotism, are now moving the world 
onward and heavenward. Just in proportion as this 
doctrine has failed of a distinct recognition, has hu- 
manity retrograded and darkness settled on the hope of 
the world. True, this doctrine has encountered already 
many vicissitudes, met with many reverses, struggled 
on through many long and weary ages of doubtful con- 
flict. Ofttimes its light has waned almost to extinc- 
tion. But thank God. since the day in the which 
Abraham first walked in its splendors over the plains of 
Mature or David's harp was touched and kindled by its 
inspiring ray, that light, however obscured, has never 
entirely gone out. But having lighted them and all the 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 415 

faithful of every age safely* to their graves and to glory 
immortal, the sacred beam still lingers, and on the path- 
way of many a poor pilgrim to the skies, is shining 
brightly to-day. Despite all attempts to shut it, the 
window is still open in the sky. The doctrine still sur- 
vives, God will not let it die. For that we are justified 
only by faith that is in Christ Jesus is a doctrine 
scarcely disputed in these days of religious light and 
Scriptural knowledge. This doctrine, has at last, strug- 
gling through all opposition, attained that golden prom- 
inence in the Christian world which a Paul, a Luther, 
and a Wesley so long and so arduously labored to se- 
cure for it. " Being justified by faith, we have peace 
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," is the 
comprehensive motto inscribed by God's own finger on 
that persecuted banner under which these men of God 
with uncompromising boldness ever continued to rally? 
When first this banner was unfurled to the breeze of 
heaven by the hand of Paul, and out on the eyes of 
men flashed its blazing motto, all the latent prejudices 
of an alienated universe were aroused and leagued for 
its destruction. Jew and Gentile, priest and philosopher 
were equally embittered and equally intent upon its 
overthrow, Still the banner waved on and brightly 
shone the motto : "Being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Til] 
finally, with patient heart, and restless hand, by all the 
constancy of the most untiring zeal, in perils by sea 
and in perils by land, and in perils among false breth- 
ren, through painfulness and weariness and watch- 
ings, and many an adverse storm, he succeeded in 
bearing that banner with its divinely-carved inscrip- 
tion, within the gates of the chief cities of his time, 
and lived to see it waving, all proudly unfurled, in 



416 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

the heart even of the world's metropolis, casting its 
genial shadow over the very palace of the Caesars. 
True, Paul was beheaded. His blood stained the 
executioner's sword. But with one eye riveted on glory 
and the other on that proudly waving banner, he goes 
calmly to the block, saying, "I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I 
have fought a good fight ; I have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith." And still that banner waved on. 
For as one mighty standard bearer fell, God raised up 
another, and yet another. Until, in after ages, pride, 
ashamed of the simplicity of that ancient banner's 
sacred motto, and with sacrilegious hand effacing it, 
inscribed one token from the traditions of men, and 
then blasphemously, unfurled it to the world in honor 
of the man of sin. Long and triumphantly did that 
false banner wave over its usurped and widely-ex- 
tended dominions, while beneath its dismal shadow, 
was the carnival of death ; moral pestilence walked the 
earth, lurid flames kindled over all the land, the flowers 
withered and every beauty died. But its proud colors 
were doomed by God to fade, and its death-inducing 
shadow to retire. For, lo, in the dawning light of a 
better day, the ancient motto once more appeared, at 
first, but dimly seen, then suddenly bursting forth from 
its hiding place of ages, within the walls of a secluded 
convent, it was seen to blaze again, with renewed 
splendor, over the pathway of the nations. By the 
hand of Luther, nerved by the Spirit of the God of 
battles, it was lifted so high into the moral heavens, 
as that all the world beheld it, and again, as of old, 
was read the golden motto, " Being justified by faith, 
we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, " until through all the realms and principalities of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 417 

a continent resounded the jubilant response, "Peace 
with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ," and the 
glad triumphant strain was echoed back by the isles of 
the ocean. But then a cloudy day succeeded, a day of 
darkness and of gloom, in which the mists of error were 
gathering thick and fast over the vision of men. Dur- 
ing this darksome day but few could read distinctly the 
ancient motto. But, lo, from the ocean's troubled 
bosom, the watchful eye of Wesley beheld the waving 
banner. He caught the glorious inscription, and by 
the grace of God quickly discerned its hallowed mean- 
ing. And nobly did he follow the example of his holy 
predecessors. Amid mobs and reproaches and the 
scorn of the universe, firmly did he bear that well-tried 
standard to Zion's consecrated brow. And while that 
banner was still waving and that motto still blazing, 
all the world was aroused by the cry : 
See on the mountain top 

The standard of your God, 
In Jesus' name I lift it up 

All stained with hallowed blood. 
His standard bearer I 

On all the nations call ; 
Let all to Jesus' cross draw nigh, 

He bore the cross for all. 

And though since that day many a storm has rolled 
around that mountain's brow, and many an angry tem- 
pest shaken it to its very base, on its now cloudless 
summit, that standard still remains, unbroken by the 
tempest's fury, and that banner, still waving, smiles o'er 
the storm. And though the envious hand of time has 
wasted the false theories of earth, and over the most 
brilliant of her transactions spread the pall of ob- 
livion, though it has long since effaced from her tallest, 
proudest, monuments, the characters inscribed to the 



418 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

memory of their ambitious builders, yet on yonder 
waving banner there still glows an inscription which 
times wasting hand has failed to reach. In characters 
undimmed and unchanged, amid sunshine and storm, 
it still continues to glow, while to this inscription is 
turning even now the anxious gaze of myriads of our 
fallen race, while tears of joy bespeak the more than 
earthly power with which it soothes their sorrows and 
charms their troubled souls to rest. ' ' Being justified 
by faith they have peace with God, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." Long may this inscription continue to 
glow, even till heaven's last thunders shake this world 
below. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



jganctifirtr ^ersrmal influence- 

"He first fincleth his own brother Simon, and said unto him, 
We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. 
And he brought him to Jesus. John I : 41-2. 

It is a fact often affirmed, though never sufficiently 
heeded, that every human being coming upon the stage 
of action, and passing away to his eternity, exerts upon 
the age and generation in which he lives, an influence 
either for good or evil. This may seem strange, but 
not more so than the subtle action and reaction of the 
forces of nature by the law of attraction and gravita- 
tion. 

The influence thus exerted is, we admit, exceed- 
ingly various. It is modified by the age, character 
and circumstances of the individual. Though slight in 
many cases, in all it is real. Though it were but the 
unconscious babe that had scarcely touched the earth 
ere it was re-called to its native heaven, yet in the fond 
mother's heart are enshrined the tiny footprints which 
she will carry with her to the grave. The influence 
which the man of wealth, of intellect, of high position, 
is competent to exert, is, as all, will admit, more com- 
manding than is that of which those less highly favored 
in these respects are capable. There are always those, 
who, from various causes, are capable of influencing 
the community to an extent beyond that, which is pos- 
sible, to any of their fellows. 

419 



420 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 

Neither, indeed, is it possible that any two in- 
dividuals should impress society precisely alike. God 
never duplicates. Each man acts upon the world 
separately and by his presence modifies its conditions 
in a way peculiarly his own — through an influence 
which the presence of no other man could possibly 
exert. It is the man's own influence. It has an in- 
dividuality about it. It is distinguishable from all 
others. God has made it thus distinct that it may ac- 
complish a distinct result and thus contribute to the 
maximum of power that moves the world. If the man 
refuse to contribute of that influence as God requires, 
there is the absence of that which none can supply. It 
is a dead loss to humanity and to God. 

And just here, also, let it be distinctlv remembered, 
that the influence which each man exerts upon his race, 
as from his nativity, he passes on to the grave, is some- 
thing real and positive in its character. It is not 
transitory or fleeting, as is the shadow of a passing 
cloud. The impression produced, the attrition of the 
revolving centuries will not efface. It fixes itself 
deeply, fearfully, eternally. You may stand up before 
your mirror for hours together, but your presence re- 
moved, your image is gone. Not so, however, with 
the impression each is leaving on his age. That age is 
a mirror in which his image will linger long after he 
shall have ceased to mingle with men on the earth. 
What the world is to-day is but the result of the aggre- 
gate influence of the generations past. This is a fact 
seriously to be pondered by all. In the great hereafter 
there is yet to be unveiled a picture, the result of the 
aggregate activity of the by-gone ages, and in which 
some traces of your influence and mine shall be dis- 
tinctly recognized. Accordingly, as the influence we 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 421 

now exert is good or bad, the world will be the better 
or worse centuries hence. 

But, above all, let it ever be borne in mind, that all 
of influence, of which any man is capable, belongs to 
God. That it is a sacred trust which he must care- 
fully guard, and for the character and results of which 
he is held strictly accountable. What each, one of 
us then should desire, is, not that his influence should 
be less, but greater still, and always pure and properly 
exerted. 

This, then, is my theme, influence, personal influ- 
ence — sanctified personal influence. 

And here I notice, first of all, the great end, with a 
view to which all of personal influence, of which we 
are capaple, should ever be exerted. 

And here we are not in the dark. In the light of 
the words before us is that end distinctly revealed. 
That with a view to which the influence of each should 
ever be exerted, is simply the bringing of his brother to 
Jesus. To this end was Andrew's influence, as in the 
text indicated, especially directed. "He first findeth 
his own brother Simon, and saith unto him. We have 
found the Messias, which is, being interpreted the 
Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." 

With respect to influence in general, it may, I 
think, be said, that it is always decisive of results in 
proportion, as it is concentrated in any given direction, 
exerted with a view to some definite and distinctly rec- 
ognized end. Within the limits of the secular, the men 
that most signally improve the world, are men that 
know just what they are living for, that so adjust the 
varied activities of their lives, as to cause all the rays 
of their personal influence to converge on a given point. 
They avoid the imbecility of aimlessness. They are 



422 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

economical of their power, and do not waste it, or frit- 
ter it away in a perpetual round of heedless, indefinite 
activities. Above all things, then, if you would achieve 
anything worth while in this world, beware of dissipat- 
ing your influence through heedlessness and indefinite- 
ness of aim. Gather it all up, as with a miserly care, 
making it tell in some one direction, in the achievement 
of something decisive, something that will last, that 
will, through all eternity, worthily commemorate the 
awful fact that you existed in time. Transcending for- 
ever, however, all that is merely secular, the great pur- 
pose of Christianity, is to concentrate ultimately, the 
whole influence of its votaries, with a view simply, to 
the achievement of spiritual ends, with a view, solely, to 
the bringing again to Christ, and the building up in 
Him, and within the embrace of an all-comprehending 
unity, of which He is the center, each of the millions 
created by His power and redeemed by His blood. 
This, then, is the one great business of the Christian 
here. The bringing of his brother to Jesus. This is 
that given point to which all the rays of his personal 
influence must converge. What of his influence, that 
does not either directly or indirectly contribute to this, 
is short of the highest end. It goes to the other side 
and becomes a contribution to that which tends only 
to estrange his brother to lead him yet farther away 
from Jesus into regions still more remote from the eter- 
nal fountain of life and joy. 

"And he brought him to Jesus.'* And never was 
personal influence, exerted within a nobler sphere. It 
was influence exerted within the sphere of the spiritual 
with a view to spiritual ends, and as such, kindred to 
that of the sublimest agencies extant in the universe, in 
its nature allied to that of the countless invisible po- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 423 

tencies that contribute to the shaping of the destinies 
of the moral world. 

£C And he brought him to Jesus." And never did 
personal influence tend to a grander result. For in this 
bringing of his brother to Jesus, does the Christian 
contribute directly to the actual realization of the great 
purpose of Christ's agency in the world. The good 
deed born here. Christ came to be the great center 
of a restored unity in the moral world. This is the 
import of the ancient prophecy. The scepter shall 
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between 
his feet, until Shiloh come and to him, shall the gather- 
ing of the people be. " This is the import of the words 
of Christ. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto Me." In the same strain are the 
words of Paul. " That in the disposition of the full- 
ness of times he might gather together in one, all things 
in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on 
earth, even in him." 

How grand, then, the result to the achievement 
of which the Christian is thus, through his personal in- 
fluence, permitted to contribute. To help God build 
a world, to be permitted to contribute to this result, 
a ray of light, or a partical of dust, might, indeed, 
reflect honor on an angel. And yet, how insignificant 
such a service, even, compared to that he is permitted 
to render, that brings a brother to Jesus. This is to 
help Christ on to the consummation of His grand 
project of originating out of the remnants of our wrecked 
and ruined nature, a new creation, a project to the 
glory and grandeur of which the creation of a material 
world, out of nothingness bears no comparison. Thus 
uniting and combining again of all things in Christ, in 
conformity with the divine will and purpose, is then, the 



424 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

great end, to which all of influence of which we are 
capable, should constantly tend. While Christ, through 
the potent and widely pervasive influence of His cross, 
is thus drawing all men unto Himself, we, through the 
influences of our lives, should co-operate with Him 
contributing to the same grand result. Either to this 
unity of all things in Christ, or to their dispersion and 
scattering abroad must the influence of each, inevit- 
ably contribute. 11 He that is not with Me, is against 
Me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth 
abroad. " 

Evidently, then, we may, by our influence, either 
practically advance the great purposes of Christ's 
agency in the world, or seriously retard them. If not 
doing the one, we are doing the other. We are either 
bringing our brother to Jesus, or leading him still fur- 
ther away from Him. Stop and consider. It is mel- 
ancholy to think how many are doing the latter, work- 
ing against Christ, instead of with Him, instead of 
gathering with Christ, scattering abroad, with the whole 
force and energy of the very powers, with which He has 
so generously endowed them, thwarting His beneficent 
intentions, neutralizing His agency, exerting their in- 
fluence disastrously, standing between perishing souls 
and the blessed Jesus, Who, all the day long, with 
yearning heart and outstretched arms, is inviting a 
weary world to His loving embrace, saying. "Come 
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest. How many, I say, who instead of 
leading these laboring, burdened souls into the out- 
stretched arms of Jesus, are, by every art and device, 
of which they are capable, leading them in the very op- 
posite direction, away from Jesus into the arms of 
Satan, into the embrace of death, to the grog-shop, to 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 425 

the dance, to the gambling saloon, to the place of de 
bauchery, to hell. 

In strict conformity then, with the great aim and 
purpose of Christ's agency in the world, Andrew begins 
at once to gather with Him. 11 He first findeth his own 
own brother, Simon. And he brought him to Jesus. 
And never was personal influence more naturally, or ap- 
propriately exerted. " He first findeth his own brother 
Simon. His own brother." Natural affection guides 
his search. Our poor earthly human lives are not an- 
nihilated by the divine, but only subordinated to, and 
glorified by it. I know not what may be your own 
brother's name. It may be Simon, or chance some 
other name. It matters not. Wherever you see a hu- 
man being, nameless, though he be, whatever his call- 
ing, his tribe or clan, there you see your own brother, 
and it is for you to do for him just what Andrew did for 
his. Bring him to Jesus. 

And he brought him to Jesus. And never was per- 
sonal influence more beneficiently exerted. For what 
better than this can possibly be done for our brother. 
To what nobler shrine, to what more distinguished goal, 
to what loftier destination, to what more honorable 
companionship can we possibly conduct him. This done 
for our brother, and, with respect to him, there remains 
nothing greater that we can do. This is the highest 
ministry of brotherly love, the tenderest token of fra- 
ternal affection and regard. 

He first findeth his own brother, Simon, and saith 
unto him, we have found the Messias, which is, being 
interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him, not into 
the possession of immense wealth, not into the posses- 
sion of vast erudition and inexhaustible stores of secular 
knowledge, not into the possession of all worldly honor, 

28 



426 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

not into places of power or of exalted rank and station 
Xay, but he brought him to Jesus. To Jesus, the desire 
of all nations, the object of the secret longings of sus- 
ceptible souls in all ages, in whom all the prophetic 
yearnings of the past were centered, whose day Abra- 
ham rejoiced to see, and he saw and was glad. 

To Jesus, to whom aspired each lambent flame, 
for centuries on Jewish altars kindled, whom angels 
announced to the trembling shepherds, to whom 
Bethlehem's guiding star disclosed to the wondering 
gaze of the eastern Magi, whom the devout and aged 
Simeon saw and was satisfied, whom Anna the prophetess 
thankfully recognized in the temple, and of whom, in 
exultant strains she spake to all those that looked for 
salvation in Israel. 

And he brought him to Jesus. To Jesus, who is 
the brightness of His Father's glory, the express image 
of His person, upholding all things by the word of His 
pojver, the Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, 
the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Alpha 
and Omega, the first and the last, in whom dwelleth all 
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. To Jesus, the author 
and finisher of our faith — the Mediator of the new 
covenant to whom all things have been delivered of the 
Father, the Sun of Righteousness, the light of the 
world, the fountain of life, the bread of heaven, the 
way, the truth and the life, and who of God is made 
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification 
and redemption. And he brought him to Jesus that 
Jesus might bring him to glory. 

Recognizing, then, as we do distinctly, this bring- 
ing of our brother to Jesus as the great end, with a 
view to which all of influence of which we are capable 
must be exerted, we notice 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 427 

The divinely prescribed way or manner in which 
our influence must be exerted in our own brother's be- 
half, in other words, the specific channel in which that 
influence is to go out and be made in the highest de- 
gree conducive to the end proposed. 

And just here, it may, I think, be said that that in- 
fluence by which we are to bring our brother to Jesus, 
is to be exerted practically in and through all the ac- 
tivities of our lives as bearing an earnest, steadfast 
testimony to Christ as the personally recognized Mes- 
siah and Saviour of the world. With just such a tes- 
timony did Andrew go to his brother Simon and by it 
influence him to come to the Saviour. " He first findeth 
his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have 
found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the 
Christ." And he brought him to Jesus.'' 

And, indeed, it is remarkable how great the impor- 
tance by Christ, attached to the simple testimony of his 
disciples, concerning himself, and how uniformly in 
the Scriptures, it is insisted upon as the great means 
of influencing men to accede to the terms of the gospel. 

Thus, we find, that the personal influence of his dis- 
ciples, as thus, through their testimony concerning 
himself exerted, was an element dominant in the very 
founding of the kingdom of Christ. The very first 
gathering of the disciples to Jesus was brought about 
only in this way, only through the influence of one 
upon another, exerted through testimony. This is evi- 
dent from the simple narrative of the text. The nar- 
rative opens by disclosing to us the Son of God, who, 
having just returned from his sore conflict with Satan 
in the wilderness, is now silently, yet serenely in the 
strength of victory, walking by the Jordan waiting for 
the testimony of John the Baptist to His Messiahship 



428 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

and the consequent recognition of any who might be 
susceptible of His divine and saving influences. For, 
however strangely it may appear to us, Christ will not, 
beyond this simple outward manifestation of himself, 
proclaim His coming or make known His presence to 
Israel, but there, in sublime loneliness, waits to be 
designated by His forerunner and to be sought after by 
all those that need His help. Not long, however, does 
He wait. For, as on the first day, that is, the day of 
His return from the wilderness, the day immediately 
preceding the one indicated in the text, while Jesus is 
thus alone, and in solemn meditative mood, walking 
on the banks of the sacred river, John the Baptist sees 
Him approaching, and, under the impulse of a sudden 
inspiration, discerning His real character, he points 
Him out to those around him, exclaiming, " Behold 
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world. Behold, this is He." This was the first testi- 
mony to Jesus after His return from the wilderness. 
And yet, strange to say, not one of all that heard this 
first day's testimony, understand its mighty import. Of 
all that heard it, not one goes forth to join himself to 
the new Master. As yet, the Son of God is solitary, 
standing alone and apart, poised seemingly mid-way 
between the bosom of the Father and the hesitant heart 
of an alienated race. "But again, the next day after, 
John stood, and two of his disciples ; and looking 
upon Jesus as still he walked, he repeated his testi- 
mony 'Behold the Lamb of God.'" That was the 
word that won, the testimony that secured to Christ 
His first disciples. "And the two disciples heard John 
speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, 
and saw them following, and saith unto them, What 
seek he ; They said unto Him, Rabbi, which is to say 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 429 

being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou ? He 
saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw 
where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day ; for it 
was about the tenth hour. One of the two which 
heard John speak, and followed Jesus, was x\ndrew, 
Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own 
brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found 
the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. 
And he brought him to Jesus." 

Such, then, is the brief and simple narrative of the 
rapid formation of the first circle of the disciples. 

We like to get back to the beginning of things — 
though no one ever did get back to the beginning of 
anything. Instinctively the mind reverts, and is by a 
strange fascination held enthralled amid the dreamy 
legends of the mythical ages. We have a fondness for 
origins. Darwin's " Origin of Species " is in the line 
of scientific predilection. It is not the phenomena of 
life simply, but the origin of life in which the naturalist 
is most profoundly interested. History inquires aboul 
Nimrod and Cecrops and Romulus. It delights in the 
delineations of the beginnings of mighty empires, and 
in tracing the action of the varied forces that have con- 
tributed to influence and shape the course of their devel- 
opment as out of feebleness they have coerced into 
strength and greatness and world-governing powers. 
There is a wonderful charm in the history of the begin- 
nings of any great and decisive movement in the inter- 
ests of humanity, and especially in the history of the 
beginnings of the Christian Church and of the varied 
struggles with which its germinal life originally asserted 
itself, and then gradually through the centuries un- 
folded into the permanent forms and institutions of the 
present day. 



430 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

A humble beginning had the Church of Christ. 

" When He first the work began, 
Small and feeble was His day." 

Quietly and unobtrusively on the banks of the Jor- 
dan was the germ planted. It grew up a tender plant, 
as a root out of a dry ground : to the world without form 
or comeliness — without beauty or attractiveness. The 
coming of His kingdom was not with observation. No 
sounding of trumpets, no ostentation, no display char- 
acterized the founding of the empire of the truth. We 
see nothing here corresponding to that which renders 
illustrious the founding of the kingdoms of this world — 
no visible splendors, no pompous exhibitions, no pa- 
rade. True, the personal influence of His followers was 
the great means by Christ, visibly employed, not how- 
ever, as exerted through the sword or any of the sym- 
bols of secular power, awakening fear, but through a 
simple testimony to Himself as the Messiah, as the way, 
the truth and, the life — through trust, awakening trust. 

And here, especially, do we see how, both in the 
founding and in the extending of His kingdom, Christ 
waits on human testimony, how He will not anticipate 
it, or go before it, or supersede its necessity, by acting 
independently of it. Why this deference to human 
testimony, we cannot tell. Paul attempts not to ex- 
plain the mystery. All he knows about it is, that "it 
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching," that is j 
by human testimony, " to save them that believe. " We 
know the simplicity of God's methods, the seemingly 
insignificant means He adopts for the achievement of 
the grandest results. He is always disappointing us. 
He avoids ostentation. The mightiest forces are the 
least obtrusive. Besides, consciousness of strength ex- 
cludes self-assertion. In Christ is exhibited the gran- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 431 

deur of unlimited power in complete repose. He does 
not restlessly, and with strivings seek His place among 
men. It is not necessary. His claim legitimate, 
His elevation to the throne is a foregone conclusion 
The sun rises, object who will. So Christ knows tha 
His way to ultimate and universal recognition cannot 
be intercepted. He knows that the stone which the 
builders rejected, will inevitably become the head- 
stone of the corner. He can afford to wait. Hence 
He does not at the first go forth into the presence of 
Israel and proclaim Himself. He does not say to the 
world, so long waiting for Him, "I am come, I am 
He," but there, on the banks of the Jordan, silently 
and patiently bides His time, waits to be designated 
and to be identified by the voice of His forerunner, to 
whom previously He had been made known by the voice 
of the Father, and the anointing Spirit descending from 
heaven like a dove #nd resting upon Him. Thus we 
see that Christ will not proclaim Himself to the world. 
He will not herald His own coming, or trumpet His 
own fame. Somebody must do this for Him. And I 
thank God, there are not wanting, those who are willing 
to do this — these 

Who love to tell the story 

Of unseen things above, 
Of Jesus and His glory, 

Of Jesus and His love. 

But then, on the other hand, do we here see how the 
world has never yet of itself been able to discern its 
Christ. Whether in Himself, or in His followers exist-' 
ing, the world is ever sadly oblivious to the presence of 
the Christ-element. Mysteriously reticent, and unob- 
trusive, He mingles ever unrecognized among men. 
Said John the Baptist, to the deputation of priests and 



432 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Levites that came to him from Jerusalem, " There 
standeth one among you Whom ye know not." Present 
undoubtedly, was Christ, with the multitude in Beth- 
abara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing, yet, 
even to his great forerunner known only through a 
special divine testimony. "And I knew him not," says 
John, " but He that sent me to baptize with water, the 
same said unto me. Upon whom thou shalt see the 
Spirit descending and remaining on Him. the same is 
He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. " Christ then, 
is hidden from the world, a hidden wisdom which none 
of the princes of the world knew, compared to a treas- 
ure hid in a field. So, twice in this chapter, as in the 
case of Andrew and Philip, is the first recognition of 
Christ proclaimed, as a great discovery, as a finding of 
Him. "We have found the Messias." We have 
found Him of Whom Moses, in the law, and the proph- 
ets did write." Of little use in discovering, Christ is 
bodily eyesight. Not by this did John the Baptist dis- 
cern Him, as on the banks of the Jordan. He walked, 
but by that spiritual eyesight vouchsafed by the Spirit 
of God to all susceptible souls. " He was in the world, 
and the world was made by Him, and the world knew 
Him not. " Though even walking in the eyes of men, 
they see Him not, nor can they, until some God-in- 
structed herald, proclaims Him, saying, "Behold, this 
is He." Neither, indeed, have any ever yet found 
their way to Christ, that were not led thither by those 
who, themselves, had found Him. and thus by blessed 
experience, knew the way to His feet. 

How potent, then, is human testimony, how essen- 
tial to the economy of grace, and to the salvation of 
the world. " Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by 
the word of God." In this way only, then, through our 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 433 

earnest, steadfast testimony to Christ, as the personally 
recognized Messiah and Saviour of the world, can our 
influence go out savingly, and be so exerted upon our 
brother as that it will sunder effectually the fetters, of 
depravity, and constrain him to the shrine of the Re- 
deemer. Indeed, the whole history of the founding and 
extending of the kingdom of Christ in the earth, is but 
the history of the personal influence of His disciples to 
this end subordinated, and exerted simply, through their 
testimony concerning Himself. 

See, then, how conspicuously in the history of the 
first gathering of the disciples to Christ the influence 
through testimony exerted, prevails. Thus John the 
Baptist having himself through a special divine testi- 
mony recognized Christ, in turn testifies of Him to those 
around him. Day after day he points him out, saying, 
11 Behold the Lamb of God," until at length influenced 
by his testimony, two of his disciples go forth to join 
themselves to the new Master. Of these one is Andrew, 
who now in turn also becomes a witness-bearer, while 
through his testimony as such, saying, "We have found 
the Messias," his own brother, Simon Peter, is arrested 
and brought to Jesus. 

So began the testimony concerning Jesus, and so must 
it be continued to the end of time. That cry, " Behold 
the Lamb of God," first heard in Bethabara beyond Jor- 
dan, caught upon the lips of succesive heralds has never 
died upon the ear, but reiterated and emphasized 
through all the intervening centuries, has already mul- 
tiplied the disciples of Jesus to millions. That cry, at 
first so feebly uttered on the banks of the Jordan, is 
now being sounded out into all the earth. Throughout 
the universe it is now becoming illustrious, while all 
along the way of the ages, from the time of the first 



434 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

great discovery by Andrew, has ever and anon rung out 
into the ears of an electrified world, and from the lips 
of inspired multitudes the glad eureka, ''We have found 
the Messias." 

And just here let it be distinctly understood that the 
testimony through which we are to exert our influence 
for the bringing of our brother to Jesus, must be a tes- 
timony concerning Christ as the personally recognized 
Messiah and Saviour of our souls. It must be a testi- 
mony concerning matters of fact and of personal experi- 
ence. With such a testimony did Andrew go to his 
brother, Simon, and by it influenced him to come to 
Jesus. It was a testimony about Jesus and his own per- 
sonal relation to and interest in Him, about a great 
finding. We have found what ? Some new fact in sci- 
ence or some new principle in philosophy? — some ex- 
haustless mine of wealth or treasures of gold and silver? 
Nay, better than all, "We have found the Messias." 
Our testimony is always potent in proportion as it is di- 
rect and concerning facts falling within the compass of 
our own observation and experience. I listen, it may 
be, with a sort of dreamy indifference to your recital of 
what some other person may have seen in England or 
in Africa, but when you begin to tell me what you your- 
self saw in those distant lands, my indifference passes 
away, my senses are all on the alert, the story has a 
freshness and a fascination in it that awakens in me 
an interest which no mere second-hand recital can 
possibly inspire. All mere hearsay evidence is ruled 
out of court. I may be partially interested in your 
story about somebody else that has found the Messiah, 
but I would rather see the man himself that has found 
Him and get the story fresh from his own lips. 

And especially let it be remembered that the testi- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 435 

mony through which we are to exert our influence for 
the bringing of our brother to Jesus, must not be simply 
that of the lips but that of the life as well. 

It is a question, which has the most weight with an 
intelligent jury, the words or the demeanor of the wit- 
ness-bearer ; which is the most forceful in the presence 
of a popular assembly, the utterance or the action of 
the orator. The attitude of the witness-bearer is im- 
portant. It is hardly consistent, to be ever crying with 
John the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God," and 
all the while looking and pointing in the opposite di- 
rection. Not so, the Baptist. • 'And looking upon 
Jesus, as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of 
God." The whole man was a testimony. His eye, and 
his lips, and his hand, all pointed to the same object. 
vSo, also, must ours ever be a practical testimony, a testi- 
mony, the outgoings of which are in all the activities 
of our lives. In every place and in all things should 
the Christian be a remembrancer of Jesus. In every 
place and in all things should he be saying to those 
around him, "I have found the Messias." Not, 
however, that he can be always talking about Christ, 
not that he must be always assuming the attitude or 
performing the outward acts of devotion, but sim- 
ply, that there be always about him, that which points 
to Christ, that which wins to Christ, such a savor of 
holiness, such a spirit of meekness and love, as that the 
world shall take knowledge of him, that he has been 
with Jesus and learned of Him. The very best way in 
which the Christian can testify to the world, the fact 
that he has found the Messiah, is by a life devoted to 
His fear, a life of humility and of unlimited trust ; a 
life consecrated to all holy purposes, replete with all 
obedient and heavenward tendencies, with all sacred 



436 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

fervors, with all gentle, loving ministries. In no other 
way can he herald the fact so loudly, so convincingly. 
In such a life is there a testimony to Jesus, the most 
practical and decisive and through which an influence 
for God, far-reaching and kindly subduing, is exerted 
upon the world. 

We sometimes complain that we are not eloquent 
01 facile in speech and therefore cannot with the ready 
utterance that characterizes many others declare our 
experience in the things of God. But let us ever re- 
member this one fact, that better than all mere words 
about Jesus, better than all testimonies of the lips con- 
cerning Him, better than all creeds and formulas and 
confessions of faith is a Christlike spirit practically ex- 
emplified. 

Once on a bright and beautiful Sabbath morning, in 
a little town on the banks of the Juniata, I sat in the 
congregation of God's people, with burning heart listen- 
ing to their relation of Christian experience. One after 
another had spoken, and the fire of devotion was rap- 
idly kindling. The Master was there, honoring with 
the tokens of His grace the testimonies of His chosen 
ones. Eloquent tongues were loosed to tell the won- 
ders of redeeming love, the intervals filled with snatches 
of sacred song, when a little to the right of where I was 
sitting, there rose a pale-faced lad, in whose earnest 
countenance were discernible the traces of a fine intel- 
ligence all radiant with the light of hope and the out- 
beamings of an inward joy. With appropriate gesture, 
and prolonged yet inarticulate sound, he labored to give 
expression to the thoughts and feelings stirring his soul 
but which his tongue could not utter, for he was a mute. 
And yet there was no mistaking his meaning. There 
was that in his earnest manner, in the deep loving look 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 437 

of his eye, in the struggling of his soul for utterance, in 
the welling up of feeling exhibited in the flushed cheek 
and tremulous lips, which said more distinctly than any 
mere words could say it, ' 'I, too, have found the Messias. " 
He sat down, when, suddenly, and as if moved by a single 
impulse, the whole assembly joined in the hymn : 
" Hear Him ye deaf, His praise ye dumb 
Your loosened tongues employ." 

The effect was electrical. Into many an . eye started 
the tear of a genuine Christian sympathy, while all felt 
themselves more closely drawn to that Jesus whose sav- 
ing power was so touchingly exhibited in the strangely 
eloquent testimony of that poor dumb boy. 

Recognizing then, as we do, the means through which 
our influence is to be exerted with a view to the bring- 
ing our brother to Jesus, we proceed to notice : 

III. The source of this influence, or rather the way 
in which it may be acquired. 

Whence a sanctified personal influence, an influence 
for Christ may be derived, is certainly a question in 
which all who do not intend to live in vain are deeply 
interested. How may I become more useful in the 
world? how more potent for good? how more success- 
ful in bringing my perishing brethren to Jesus? are 
questions I say to which, every one who has in him any 
of the Spirit of the Master will be glad to have an intel- 
ligent answer. 

This answer I now propose to give. You may say 
I propose too much. I think not. The answer is at 
hand. With the simple narrative of the text before my 
eyes and the Spirit that indited it in my heart, I occupy 
a vantage ground that makes me bold and sufficient for 
the great undertaking. I am not going to tell you how 
you may become' rich, or how you may successfully 



438 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

carry out your business plans or realize your political 
aspirations. I am not going to tell you how you may 
become learned in secular lore or attain to worldly 
greatness, how deeply soever I may sympathize with 
your every honorable struggle in either of these direc- 
tions. I shall attempt nothing for which I am not called 
and competent. I am going to tell you simply how you 
may be useful in the kingdom of God, how you may 
become a felt and universally recognized power for good 
in the world, how you may successfully rescue from the 
crushing dominion of ignorance and depravity the souls 
of your perishing brethren and gather them to the home 
and the bosom of Christ. 

I say, then, that the only and the all-sufficient 
source of this coveted power, this sanctified soul-re- 
deeming, personal influence is familiarity with Jesus. 
It is not to be found in anything else, not in genius, 
wealth or worldly policy, not in familiarity wi<h books, 
whether of science or of theology ; not in familiarity 
with men, whether of high degree or low degree, only, 
I say, in familiarity with the Man, the Man Christ Jesus, 
only in living fellowship with the Son of God. 

But familiarity, you say, breeds contempt ; only, 
however, among those who are themselves contemptible. 
Niagara, with its rainbow splendors, with its rush and 
roar and majestic plunge of mighty waters, may, in- 
deed, through familiarity lose its hold on my admira- 
tion ; the sublimest of the art products of the world may 
interest us less and less, as we continue to mingle with 
them, but if so it is only because there is in them as in 
us something contemptible, as there is in everything 
that is not divine. I trust, however, vou have not been 
so unfortunate as never to have had a friend, who in all 
the characteristics of worth and nobleness did not grow 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 439 

more and more upon your estimation the more inti- 
mately you knew him, the more familiar your relation 
became, a friend in whom so abounded the wealth of a 
generous nature, as that the more thoroughly you un- 
derstood him the more profoundly you admired him ; 
a friend, indeed, whose very weaknesses only made you 
love and respect him the more. But whatever may be 
true with respect to our poor, earthly human friend- 
ships, familiarity with Jesus is at once the source of an 
ever growing admiration of His character and of an 
ever increasing influence and power for the extending 
of His kingdom among men. 

Thus we find that his familiarity with Christ was the 
real source of that influence through which Andrew 
brought his brother, Simon Peter, to Jesus. That in- 
fluence, I say, was simply the result of his going home 
with Christ and of his dwelling with Him there on terms 
of sacred intimacy. For no sooner had John the Bap- 
tist designated Christ as the Lamb of God than An- 
drew, with the other disciple that heard John speak, 
began to follow him. ''Then Jesus turned and saw 
them following and saith unto them: What seek ye? 
They said unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being in- 
terpreted, Master, where dwellest thou ? He saith unto 
them, Come and see. They came and saw where he 
dwelt, and abode with him that day ; for it was about 
th,e tenth hour." How graphic the picture, how 
lifelike the delineation!" "They abode with him 
that day." What these favored disciples saw during 
that special interview with the Lamb of God we know 
not. How He entertained them, with what glimpses 
of His glory, with what unutterably precious intimations 
of His love we cannot tell. Of their experience while 
thus pavilioned with the Holy One, we can form a con- 



440 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ception only, in the recollection of those sacred mo- 
ments in our own history, in which honored with a sim- 
ilar intimacy of converse with Him, their secret was 
ours. The result of that one day's communion with the 
Master however, we, to some extent, do know. We 
know that from the time of that single interview, An- 
drew went forth a zealous missionary for Jesus. We 
know that from that single interview he went forth trans- 
formed, went forth a new man, fired with a new truth, 
invigorated with a new life, swayed by impulses hitherto 
unfelt and under the controllings of which he hastened 
forth to convey to others the results of that one day's 
experience, and that finding first of all his own brother. 
Simon, he announced to him the wonderful discovery, 
"We have found the Messias, and he brought him to 
Jesus. " 

And to all who would be successful in bringing their 
brethren to Jesus I would say, Be intimate with Him. 
Hearken to the voices now saying, " Behold the Lamb," 
and begin at ones to follow Him, follow Him closely, 
as did the two disciples, until arresting His attention, 
He shall turn and kindly look upon you, and with words 
of searching, convincing power shall say, " W T hat seek 
ye ? " Then confess Him, call Him Master, and hum- 
bly ask Him where He lives. And when He invites 
you, as certainly He will, saying, "Come and see, "ac- 
cept the invitation, go honfe with Him, abide with Him 
there, share with Him there in the humility, in the lone- 
liness, in the poverty of His lowly dwelling, live with 
Him there a single day and be assured that from that 
single day's sacred, familiar intercourse with the infinite 
fountain of life and joy, you, too, will go forth a new 
man, invested with new power, to gather your perish- 
ing brethren to His feet. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 441 

Now from this familiarity with Christ, from this go- 
ing home with Him and dwelling with Him there on 
terms of sacred intimacy, springs, first of all, such a 
thorough conviction of the reality of His character as 
the Messiah and Saviour of the world, as cannot fail to 
impart to the life of its possessor enlarged efficiency and 
power. 

Instead of responding directly to the question of the 
disciples, " Where dwellest Thou?" Jesus said unto 
them, Come and see." Wait not for any words of 
Mine or for any formal explanations. It will do you but 
little good to know where I dwell, unless you dwell with 
Me there. Come and see for yourselves. And this is 
precisely the experimental test which Christ invites every 
man to apply. Why stand at a distance, questioning 
and disputing about Me* and My lodgings when, by a 
single experiment, the whole matter may be decided ? 
•'Come and see.'' Seeing is conviction. To see Jesus 
in His own home, within the sphere of His own private 
life, to live in the element He lives in, to breathe the 
atmosphere He breathes, is simply to insure the convic- 
tion of His Messiahship. And it was under the power 
of this conviction thus wrought that Andrew hastened to 
bring his brother, Simon Peter, to Jesus. He had ap- 
plied the test. He had been to see Jesus, had com- 
muned with Him within the retirement and sanctity of 
His own home. Conviction followed. Hence his un- 
faltering testimony, "We have found the Messias.'* 
" The festive freshness. " the gladness, the triumph of 
this announcement cannot be concealed. It is not the 
language of hesitancy or of doubt or of supposition, 
but of assured confidence, of certainty of deep and 
overwhelmning conviction, "We have found the Mes- 
sias." He does not say doubtfully, I think we have 

29 



442 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

found the Messias, I hope we have found Him, but pos- 
itively, "We have found the Messias;" not an im- 
poster, not one claiming the title merely, but the Mes- 
sias, the veritable Messias, Him of whom Moses in the 
law and the prophets did write, the treasure of the uni- 
verse, the hope of the ages for forty centuries looked 
for, for forty centuries hidden, but lo, now to our own 
eyes revealed. And with this conviction burning in his 
heart, what else could he do than go at once and with 
the utterance of it thrill the ear of his brother, Simon, 
until his soul, inspired with a kindred faith, bears him 
speedily and with joy into the presence and the embrace 
of Jesus. 

The practical influence of deep convictions in all the 
departments of life is what none will deny. The man 
of deep convictions is always an earnest man. What 
other men guess at, he sees ; what other men hold as 
mere opinions, he holds as self-evident truth ; what to 
other men are bare possibilities, are to him the sub- 
limest realizations. Hence, while the hearts of other 
men are ice or stone, his is a flame of fire. The man 
of deep convictions is always a man of action. The 
steam up and applied, the brakes lifted and locomotion 
must begin. What in all the departments of its activity 
in science, in government, in religion, the world wants 
is faith. Faith discovered America ; faith tunneled the 
Thames ; faith laid the Atlantic cable and " welded two 
yearning continents with lightning spark." Faith is 
power ; faith is progress ; faith is victory. We talk 
of crushed hearts ; they are hearts in which faith has 
died, that is all. 

What is the minister of the gospel worth without this 
conviction ? Is he the bearer to others of that which 
he himself does not believe, talking to the world of a 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 443 

Jesus he has never seen, of a Messias he has never 
found ? No wonder his words take no hold on the 
hearts of those that hear. If he is not quite certain him- 
self, he will hardly awaken the conviction of certainty 
in others. You can make a man believe anything, if 
you only believe it yourself. Conviction is contagious. 
Nay he must be able to say unhesitatingly and with all 
that peculiar force of emphasis consequent upon the 
most undoubted conviction, I have found the Messias. 
Such emphasis the apostle's preaching had. "For our 
gospel," says Paul, "came not unto you in word only, 
but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much 
assurance." It is not then, after all, the utterance of 
beautiful sentences or of sublime Bible doctrine or of 
great gospel facts simply, but the deep, thoroughly and 
divinely wrought convictions of his own soul that gives 
to the Christian minister his power. Faith in the speaker 
awakening faith in the hearer is the sum of the philos- 
ophy of preaching. This is the secret of the power of 
all those mighty ones whose words have shaken the world. 
Their ministry was the utterance not simply of what 
they had heard or read of cold, hard, unrealized truth, 
but of what they had felt, of the profoundest convic- 
tions of their own souls. Their testimony was not con- 
cerning a Messias whom somebody else had found, but 
whom they themselves had found. Hence they were 
able mimisters of the New Testament, not of the letter 
which killeth but of the Spirit which giveth life. 

Hut if the minister is worthless without the convic- 
tion of which we speak, the member is equally so. All 
our haltings in the way of duty, all our feebleness and 
inefficiency in conflict with the evil that is in ourselves 
and in the world around us, are traceable not as we 
sometimes say to our peculiar temperament or timor- 



444 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ousness or unobtrusiveness of disposition, but to the 
absence of a deep religious conviction, traceable to the 
fact that we cannot with confidence say each for him- 
self, "I have found the Messias." I know not of what 
peculiar temperament Andrew naturally was. He may 
for aught I know, have been a very reserved and quiet 
man, a very sensitive and timid man, a man of indolent 
disposition, of slow impulses, of tardy convictions, but 
this I do know, that having once discovered Christ and 
recognized Him in His true character as the world's 
long-looked for Messiah, there was but one thing to be 
done, and that was to speak to his brother about it. It 
is not difficult to speak of a great truth when the con- 
viction of it is burning in the soul. Indeed the utter- 
ance of it cannot be repressed. It will speak itself. 
Mighty secrets must struggle to the light. What avail 
the interdictions of despotism? "We cannot,'' says 
the apostle, "but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard." 

Here then, ray brethren, is the sad secret of all our 
inefficiency in the kingdom of God. We have lost our 
convictions, that vivid soul-stirring apprehension of 
Christ as a personal Saviour, we once had. Christ has 
become to us a shadow instead of a substance, an idea 
instead of a fact, a myth instead of a reality, your 
Saviour instead of my Saviour, a Christ to the world 
instead of a Christ to me. Time was perchance when 
all this miserable indefiniteness had no place in your ex- 
perience, when you saw clearly and felt deeply the re- 
ality and the worth of the newly found Jesus, when you 
went forth unbidden to your friends and neighbors with 
the jubilant, exultant triumphant testimony, " I have 
found the Messias." Then you went not because you 
were urged to go, not because it was your duty to go, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. M5 

but because you could not but go. For though you may 
have said, "I will not make mention of Him or speak 
any more in His name, yet His word was in your heart 
as a burning fire shut up in your bones, and you were 
weary with forbearing and you could not stay." You 
had seen Jesus and could not rest while any yet re- 
mained who did not participate with you in the glorious 
vision. You had found a friend of worth and you wanted 
Him to be as widely known as possible ; hence you 
went about introducing Him to everybody. Your lan- 
guage was : 

" O that the world might taste and see 
The riches of His grace." 

How important a thing, then, my brethren, is a deep 
religious conviction. How grand a thing it is to be 
able to feel, that instead of deceitful quicksands, we 
stand on solid rock, that instead of grasping at shadows, 
we are holding on to the eternal, to be able to feel that 
instead of a cunningly devised fable, our religion is the 
sublimest truth, the ultimate verity of the universe. 
Only then, I say. through familiarity with Christ, is 
such a conviction possible, we must get us home with 
Jesus. You may study the evidences of Christianity 
for years together, you may watch its results and wait 
upon its ordinances a lifetime, and yet have no influen- 
tial conviction of its worth and saving power. This 
conviction Andrew secured, by dwelling with the Sav- 
iour the remnant of a day. Two hours only, of blessed 
experience in communion with the Master, and the con- 
viction of His Messiaship was so, as by some touch of 
sacred fire, burnt into his soul as that it could never af- 
terwards be obliterated. And as to Andrew, so to every 
inquiring soul, the language of Jesus is, " Come and 
see." Come and make proof for yourself, To the 



446 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

world's questionings, this is His only response, ''Come 
and see." And thank God, of all that have come, not 
one has ever yet gone away doubting or dissatisfied, 
" Come and see." " O taste and see that the Lord is 
good." And having thus seen for yourself, you will, 
through the conviction of the reality of His character, 
thus wrought in your soul, be fully qualified to confront 
a sceptical world and with an emphasis silencing all its 
cavilings and all its contradictions, be able to testify 
that you have found the Messiah. With this conviction 
kindling in your soul, your testimony concerning Jesus, 
will be with decisiveness and lightning-like force. 
Then will you speak from experience, testifying of that 
which you know, without hesitency and without mis- 
giving. 

• 4 What we have felt and seen 
With confidence we tell 
And publish to the sons of men 
The signs infallible." 

But from this familiarity with Christ, from this go- 
ing home with Him and dwelling with Him there, on 
terms of sacred intimacy, springs also a Christlike 
spirit, which is another of the primary conditions of 
enlarged efficiency and power. In communion with 
Christ, there comes to our hearts, not only a divine 
conviction, but also a divine inspiration. 

Andrew having found Messias, abode with Him the 
remnant of a day. How much in those few hours he 
became like his Master, how much he absorbed of 'His 
life and gathered of His Spirit, we know not, sufficient, 
however, to awaken within him the beginning of those 
strange yearnings for his brother, which only the child 
of God can understand, and which from that time forth 
were to grow more and more upon the sacred heart of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 447 

Christendom, finding their only proper expression in 
that sublime missionary restlessness, which aims to em- 
brace, and bring to the feet of Jesus, each individual of 
our alienated race. 

The nearer we get to Christ, the nearer we get to 
humanity, the more are we drawn out in desire for the 
welfare of our fellowmen. Not long could Andrew 
dwell with Jesus without thinking of his brother Simon. 
There is something about Christ that always puts us in 
mind of our brother. There is that in His voice to 
which responds instinctively, the sense of fraternity 
that is in us. Not long, can we converse with Him, 
without thinking of the absent ones, who still wait be- 
yond the circle of His saving influence. In His pres- 
ence is elicited all that is noblest in our nature, tender- 
est susceptibilities, mysterious heart yearnings, the 
sense of primal unity, the sacred instinct of brother- 
hood. 

Were I called upon to designate any single com- 
modity, of which there is more in this world, than of 
any other, I would say it is selfishness. It has frozen 
the heart of humanity to death, chilled to ice, all the 
nobler life currents of our being. In nearness to Christ 
alone can relief be found. The all-penetrating beams 
of His love alone can melt the ice away and cause the 
congealed life currents again to flow. In living fellow- 
ship with Him, we are stirred with all divinely-kindled 
impulses, imbued with all Christly tenderness, we catch 
His spirit, His spirit of love, His spirit of devotion. 
His self-sacrificing spirit, the icy fetters enthralling the 
soul, are dissolved, the fountains of sympathy are 
opened, and as the hours of holy communion glide 
swiftly by, we think of our poor brother who knows 
nothing of all this, who is, as if the Messias had not 



448 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

come, sitting in silence and in sorrow, in darkness and 
in death. We hasten forth in all directions, seeking 
until we find him, then, into his listening ear, pour 
the joyful tidings, "We have found the Messias," until 
startled from his revery, and thrilled into new life by 
the power of our testimony, he confidently puts his 
hand in ours and we bring him to Jesus. 

"He first findeth his own brother, wSimon." How 
natural. Religion begins at home. Its ministry is 
first of all within the sphere of natural affection. "Go 
home to thy friends," said Christ to the man of the 
tombs, and out of whom he had cast a legion of devils, 
" go home to thy friends and tell them how great things 
the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion 
on thee. " The religion that will not bear telling at home, 
is not likely to be of much service abroad. 

I take this man Andrew to be a type or representa- 
tive of what every man ought to be, of what every man 
must be, just in proportion as he is a Christian. He is 
a missionary for Jesus, symbolizing in his activity, in 
behalf of his brother Simon, the activity essential to 
every Christian, and inseparable from an experimental 
knowledge of Christ, an activity which exhibited first of 
all m the family, and for the salvation of those nearest 
to us, is in its influence, ever widening out into the 
community, reaching ultimately to the ends of the 
earth. 

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth," says 
Christ, "will draw all men unto Me." Thus to draw 
all men unto Himself, is then, the great purpose of 
Christ's agency in the world. To the realization of 
this purpose is every Christian called to contribute. 
He is called to be a missionary bringing his brother to 
Jesus. And it is most encouraging to see how grandly 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 449 

this great purpose of Christ's agency in the earth is be- 
ing realized, to see how each is coming to Jesus, bring- 
ing his brother with him, to see how to Him, the Shi- 
loh, has been, and still is the gathering of the people. 
Ever and anon is some poor wanderer over life's sterile 
wastes arrested and gathered into the fold. Ever and 
anon is some vagrant heart attracted by the power of the 
cross, and restored to harmony and to God. Not long 
shall the nations resist His power, but breaking away 
from the fetters of superstition and in contempt of 
all the vanities that have hitherto attracted their gaze, 
shall come seeking Him of Whom Moses in the law and 
the prophets did write, saying, as did the two distin- 
guished Greeks, the representatives indeed, of the whole 
Gentile world, " We would see Jesus." Yes, 

"They come, they come ; Thine exiled bands, 
Where'er they rest or roam, 
Have heard Thy voice in distant lands, 
And hasten to their home." 

Let us then, every man to his work. Every man a 
missionary for Jesus. This, my brethren, is your call- 
ing here, your sublime vocation among men, " Ye have 
not chosen Me, says Christ, "but I have chosen you, 
and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth 
fruit, and that your fruit should remain." Go then. Is 
there no one you can reach ? Doubtless there is, if 
you will but take the trouble to look for him. "He 
first findeth his own brother Simon." Your brother is 
lost, your business is to find him. He is bewildered 
and astray, in the pathless desert aimlessly wandering 
in the dreary mazes of sin and folly, groping in dark- 
ness for the light. Your business is to go after him and 
to search him out. It may be some poor, neglected 
child of misfortune, a homeless, friendless orphan, 



450 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

without culture or care, go after him and bring him into 
the Sabbath-school. It may be a man stricken and be- 
reaved, battling with adversity, yearning for sympathy 
and the companionship of the good, go after him and 
bring him into the class-room ; it may be a man con- 
science-smitten, guilt-burdened, inquiring the way to 
the mercy-seat, seeking rest and finding none, go after 
him and bring him into the prayer-meeting ; it may be 
a stranger in the city, a wayfaring »man, away from 
home and family and friends, tempted and tried, go af- 
ter him and bring him into the congregation of God's 
people, and here within this charmed circle of brotherly 
love and affection, give him a place. Did you ever 
bring a brother to Jesus? Did you ever experience the 
gladness, the rapture bordering on the ecstasy of 
heaven, incident to the achievement of such a mission? 
If not, then, there yet awaits you the divinest bliss pos- 
sible, this side the immortal transports of the celestial 
world. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



©ur iSihk anir <©ut Jlttierties. 

[Centennial Sermon, Preached March, 1876.] 

'•And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. " 
— John viii. 32. 

Early in the history of our country a strange spirit 
lighted on its shores. Comparatively friendless and 
fugitive, it threw itself on the hospitality of these lands. 
It had the appearance of a pilgrim, much worn indeed 
with travel, and all bleeding from recent wounds, indic- 
ative that it had met with much harsh treatment by the 
way. From the storm and the battle-strife of the Old 
World it came seeking an asylum in the New. All 
along its pathway through the centuries, were lying the 
memorials of the cruel hate in selfish hearts engendered 
by its presence ; here, a faggot half consumed ; there, 
a rugged bolt hurled at it in its passing ; and yonder, a 
shivered link from the old chain, with which merciless 
power would fain have manacled its massive limbs. 
And yet with the key of the world's destiny at its gir- 
dle, and in its hand a subtle two-edged sword, it held on 
its way, defiantly, defended ever by the supernal power 
that gave it birth. It was, however, a most genial spirit 
— loved by a few, and by all who knew it ad- 
mired for its dignity and fearless bearing. It had in- 
deed been honored with the special friendship of the 
noblest men of every age in whose hearts it found a 
generous home, and many of whom, rather than sacri- 

451 



452 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 

fice their hearts' guest, cheerfully shed their life-blood. 
Friendly to all the great interests of humanity, it com- 
mended itself especially to the suffering and the op- 
pressed ; though, of necessity, the uncompromising foe 
of all the enemies of our race. In the salubrious cli- 
mate and fresh mountain air of these lands it found 
everything conducive to its health and activity. Soon 
its wounds were healed, its energies restored, and it felt 
that it was itself again. Endowed with ubiquity, it dif- 
fused itself universally ; enthroning itself in all suscept- 
ible hearts ; pervading with its essence our organiza- 
tions and our laws. It became the life and vigor of our 
institutions, stimulating our national enterprise and 
controlling our national destiny. Sentinel-like, stand- 
ing on the verge of a new civilization, it sternly grap- 
pled with the power of the usurper — with one decisive 
stroke of its giant arm sundering all false relations, thus 
rescuing a continent from the grasp of tyranny and all 
the influences tending to debase and enslave. From 
the day in which Moses and Aaron stood in the pres- 
ence of Pharaoh, and in the name of the Lord God de- 
manded of him that he should let Israel go ; to the day 
in which Leonidas with his three hundred Spartans 
stood in the straits of Thermopylae ; down even to that 
great crisis hour in which Patrick Henry burst the grave 
of freedom with his utterance of. fire — • ' give me liberty 
or give me death " — have the struggles and the triumphs 
of this spirit been the burden of the world's history and 
the inspiration of its song. 

This was the spirit of liberty, the expatriated free- 
dom of other lands — by the timely appearance of which 
on these shores, were forestalled the encroachments of 
all despotism and the birth of our glorious republic ac- 
celerated. 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 453 
Here, then, in lands remote from civilization as from 
the scenes of its ancient battles, was reserved for the 
spirit of liberty a theater for the most ample display of 
its hitherto restricted powers. Indeed, it would seem 
that a theater more advantageous could not have ex- 
isted. From this continent, to the recent discovery of 
which the genius of Columbus had led the way, had been 
providentially excluded all that which in other coun- 
tries had so long intercepted the advance of the spirit 
of liberty to its predestined goal. The spirit of conser- 
vatism, that in the Old World had long since touched 
and petrified, and thus turned into the monuments of 
its own stupidity the crude forms in which were embod- 
ied the stifled energies of the race, had not as yet as- 
sumed jurisdiction here. This spirit may indeed here- 
after touch upon these shores, instituting a terrible 
struggle for the pre-eminence, yet not by any means in 
the advance, or to the ultimate disadvantage of its illus- 
trious competitor. As yet, however, the field is open, 
by nothing hostile pre-occupied. Into this field, con- 
scious of its great opportunity, the spirit of liberty now 
enters, henceforth plying exhaustless energies with a 
view to the grandest of all mere human achievements, 
and in a free constitutional government, with all it in- 
volves of privilege and protection and just limitation 
and equal distribution of power, embodies itself no less 
for the good than for the admiration of mankind. The 
spirit, so long roaming the earth naked, unembodied, 
now clothes itself — takes on appropriate form. That 
which had hitherto existed only ideally or in possibility, 
now exists in fact — the actual possession of millions of 
the race. That splendid dream which, ever and anon 
with transient smiles, had illumined the stern features 
of the slumbering ages — those ages now awakening, find 



454 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

a reality. In a word, constitutional liberty is gradu- 
ally established, civil and political freedom progress- 
ively realized, and within the sphere of practical life 
enthroned, while over a national domain, constantly 
enlarging, are scattered profusely the blessings of its 
beneficent reign. 

The practical realization of liberty, however, is not 
always commensurate with its spirit. The spirit may 
exist where its forms are entirely wanting, even in the 
hearts of a people outwardly subjected to the most des- 
potic rule. Of this fact the last few centuries of the 
world's history furnish abundant illustration. If, in- 
deed, of those centuries dating especially from the times 
of the Reformation, there is any one distinguishing 
characteristic, it is the enthusiasm of liberty. The 
stretching forth of the hands of all peoples to grasp 
the boon of an absolute enfranchisement is certainly, of 
this period, the feature most conspicuous to the ob- 
servant eye, at once arresting and enchaining the at- 
tention as we tra*ce the successive incomings and out- 
goings of its eventful years. Neither has this stretch- 
ing forth of the hands been in vain. The boon has been 
realized ; liberty has been achieved ; its spirit en- 
shrined ; its great idea embodied ; and for the first time 
in the roll of ages, within the century now closing, of 
all the centuries of the Christian era (save the first), by 
this very fact rendered the most illustrious, above all 
distinguished as dating a grand epoch in the history of 
a race, of which hitherto Serfdom and Spoliation and 
Oppression had been, with an unvarying uniformity, the 
melancholy characteristics. This then is the glory of 
the century ; that it is the century of the grandest real- 
izations ; a period, the coming in of which marks de- 
cisively an advanced stage in the history of human en- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 455 

franchisement : the beginning, of the process of the de- 
velopment of liberty, as something practical, as a 
mighty destiny shaping force in the world. Hitherto 
liberty had existed only ideally, or in the breathings of 
men ; an instinct, a feeling, a subtle widely diffused es- 
sence, a fire smouldering in the heart of humanity, ever 
and anon flashing forth an indignant protest against the 
encroachments of despotic power. Henceforth, how- 
ever, it was to exist positively, even defiantly, to take 
its place amid the actualities of the universe, a sub- 
limely organized result, as a mighty disenthralled self 
asserting life-force exhibited, not only as pouring itself 
forth in preparatory resolutions and declarations, and 
in heroic military achievements, in vindications of the 
principles thus embodied — but also as gradually devel- 
oping in appropriate forms and representative institu- 
tions, and corresponding legal and constitutional enact- 
ments, thus far into the oncoming ages- — guaranteeing 
its own perpetuity, and to unborn millions the enjoy- 
ment of all these imprescriptible rights, to the full real- 
ization of which their nature had so long and yet so 
fruitlessly aspired. 

But to the glory thus distinguishing the century has 
our country especially fallen heir. Politically, no 
grander result is possible than that within the last hun- 
dred years realized by the American people. Gradually 
through all these years has the process tending to a full 
practical realization of liberty — civil and political — 
been going on in these lands. With the Declaration of 
Independence and the struggle ensuing, with which the 
century opened, was this process most conspicuously 
inaugurated. The conditions have not always been 
favorable. Often, indeed, has this process been inter- 
rupted and the result endangered, yet as often have the 



456 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

great underlying forces of truth and right asserted them- 
selves, triumphing over everything antagonizing the is- 
sue or rendering it doubtful. Successive stages — more 
or less decisive — have characterized this process as 
through successive periods it has hurried on to the grand 
consummation. By the wisdom and the valor of three 
full generations has its development been stimulated, 
and successfully through all the perils incident to for- 
eign complications and bitter fratricidal strifes, guided 
to its ultimate completion. Of all the outstretched 
hands, there were none feebler or seemingly less com- 
petent to retain their grasp upon the priceless boon o 
freedom than those of the Thirteen Colonies, who 
through their representatives in Congress, assembled on 
the 4th of July, 1776, asserted their right to nationa 
independence, and to the world proclaimed their inten- 
tion henceforth to assume the prerogatives of self-gov- 
ernment with all of responsibility that assumption in- 
volved. And yet into their hands the boon of freedom 
fell — hands which by some secret power nerved, never- 
more relaxed their hold. While other hands were 
grasping images and shadows and mere resemblances, 
theirs grasped the reality, and grasping it, they would 
relinquish it never. The longed-for prize no sooner 
seized, than all their fleshy sinews turned to iron. And 
thus through a hundred years and by a process of de- 
velopment to the unprejudiced mind evidently con- 
ducted under the superintendence of an infinite wis- 
dom, has been handed down from generation to genera- 
tion that heritage of freedom for which, with only here 
and there a doubtful exception, the people of other 
lands have, through all these years, sighed and strug- 
gled in vain. 

And to the heirs of such an inheritance is it now 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 457 

given to stand, amid the lingering glories of this the 
first grand century of their country's independence, and 
thus standing not only to exult in the gathered monu- 
ments that chronicle for all nations the energy and the 
enterprise that have marked its fast receding years, but 
also to indulge in the proud triumphant boast that upon 
all the ample territory with the evidences of whose 
manifold industries and rapidly developing resources 
they thus greet their first Centennial, the light of an 
advanced Christian civilization has dawned, before the 
intensifying splendors of which the last mediaeval shadow 
has now at length and forever departed ; that beyond 
all other lands, this is the asylum of the oppressed ; the 
sanctuary of equal rights, emphatically the land of 
the free ; that whatever, until recently, might have been 
said in abatement of the truth of this declaration, now, 
at least has come the day, has come the blessed hour in 
which of our national domain it may be said that lib- 
erty smiles in every sunbeam that gladdens its hill-tops, 
and revels in every breeze that whispers through its 
vales. 

Fully to indicate the extent to which the practical 
realization of liberty in these lands is due to moral 
causes, and to the Bible especially, is perhaps impossi- 
ble. That the results of the struggles of the last hun- 
dred years of our history are in no way linked with the 
divine in the affairs of men, or dependent on causes 
distinct from those naturally existing in humanity, is a 
position I leave the baldest atheism to assume. The 
conception of the State as altogether secular, as a god 
less institution, realizing its aims simply through the de- 
velopment of inherent energies, is one of those things 
which the more advanced intelligence of the race has, 
in. its progress through the century now closing, well 

3o 



458 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

nigh abandoned. Gradually has there been a coming 
to the light of the great fact that the religious idea is 
the moulding force of all civilizations, the generating 
principle of all political constitutions, that it is the pil- 
lar of fire going before and guiding the nations in their 
march across the ages. More and more distinctly are 
men coming to see that precisely as is the worth of the 
religious ideas and sentiments of any people is that of 
their social organizations ; that it is the earnestness in- 
spired of moral convictions chiefly, that expresses itself 
in the assertion of political rights. That there has 
been from the beginning some invisible underlying 
force shaping uniformly the development of our coun- 
try's history in the interests of an absolute enfranchise- 
ment, is a fact so patent as hardly to have escaped 
the notice of the most listless observer. What then, is 
this force, this silent, all-pervading, destiny-moulding 
energy ? To this question the words of the great 
Teacher are the only answer : "And ye shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall make you free." The truth, 
then, is that divine element in the affairs of men in 
which all freedom roots itself, and beyond the extent 
of our knowledge of which this sacred boon can never 
be realized. 

For our liberties, then — civil and political — I claim 
a divine origin, a moral basis. In the Bible, in the 
truth it contains, is laid the broad foundation of those 
liberties— the immutable basis on which they repose. 
Indeed, I know of no other basis. On this rock they 
rest. To the principles of this inspired book, by what- 
ever means brought into contact with the national life, 
must be ascribed under God the glory of their produc- 
tion and the credit of their perpetuity. I have no idea 
of liberty otherwise originated. I know it is fashion- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 459 

able to talk of the force of great ideas, of social and 
political agencies, of free constitutions and systems, of 
equal and independent laws, as in themselves competent 
to the task of obliterating the curse of tyranny. These, 
I admit, must supervene in order to the result, yet 
never can, save as the expression of evangelical prin- 
ciples. From the beginning there have been scintilla- 
tions of the supernal light in all the world. To some 
extent have these scintillations modified existing social 
organizations. And yet, where was liberty before the 
Christian era, or even since, save where its deep founda- 
tions were laid in the diffused knowledge of evangelical 
truth ? It is useless to summon into recollection the 
famed republics of Greece and Rome. Their liberties 
were but the meagre result of the tentative struggle of 
a pagan civilization to reach an instinctively longed-for 
goal. The principle underlying and shaping that 
civilization was not sufficiently divine, hence not suf- 
ficiently potential to achieve success. If, indeed, in- 
dependently of the conditions superinduced by an un- 
fettered and widely diffused Christianity, liberty has 
ever claimed to exist, it has been more in shadow than 
in substance, more in form than in fact, more as the 
weak and distorted offspring of some vague and inde- 
finite feeling than as the grand symmetrical outgrowth 
of vital principle. 

How, then, does the truth of the Bible operate in 
the interests of liberty ? Not by prescribing and en- 
forcing a specific form of government, but through the 
diffusion of principles enlightening the general intelli- 
gence, thus revealing the conditions essential to the 
growth and permanence of free institutions. It de- 
posits in the minds of men those great germinal thoughts 
or ideas which, wherever and to whatever extent ex- 



460 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

isting, must, through the national life, unfold in out- 
ward forms, and in their unfolding supplant whatever 
is foreign to their own nature, or out of harmony with 
their own tendencies. The history of the world is but 
the history of the struggle of great ideas. Of the 
colonial period of our country's history is this especially 
true. It was simply a question which should prevail, 
whether the principle of despotism or the principal of 
liberty in these elementary organizations, that for a 
century and a half at least had claimed the occupancy 
of these lands. Principles handed down from times 
long anterior to those of the Reformation had, through 
all that period, assumed to shape these organizations 
in the interests" of caste and usurpation, but were effect- 
ually counteracted and ultimately neutralized by prin- 
ciples, which, from a more recent date, had gradually 
attained to jurisdiction in the minds of men. It is dif- 
ficult to produce exactly that vague conception of hu- 
man rights, which, even up to the beginning of the 
century now closing, had prevailed in the political 
creeds of mankind. The right of man to be free, how- 
ever dimly suspected by some or feebly asserted by 
others, had as yet received no authoritative recognition 
or acknowledgement. The divine right of kings, and 
the prerogatives of the governing classes, had long been 
affirmed and maintained to the almost utter practical 
ignoring of the people and of their right to freedom and 
self-government. The most servile political maxims 
were everywhere inculcated. The doctrine of passive 
obedience — that the subject has nothing to say to the 
laws except to obey them ; that the people belong to 
the reigning prince ; that sovereignty is personal prop- 
erty, to be sold, entailed or given away at discretion ; 
that the crown is something to be handed around from 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 461 

one to another as the interests of royalty may require 
or its superior wisdom dictate ; that empire is some- 
thing to be staked on a game of chance, on a passion 
or a caprice, to be hawked about in the great marts of 
political traffic, and to the best advantage of its owner 
by skillful diplomatic auctioneers — -in a word, that any 
assumption of the functions of government by the peo- 
ple or even of the right to intimate by whom or in 
what form it shall be administered, is to be immediately 
and at all hazzards repressed, not only as a criminal 
invasion of private property, but also as a most sacri- 
lgious intermeddling with the behests of heaven and 
the established order of the universe. Such the senti- 
ments prevailing almost universally at the time of the 
planting of the colonies on these shores, and which, 
but slightly modified, were yet rife and respectable, 
and in nearly all the world practically influential, even 
when, in 1776, these colonies proclaimed their inde- 
pendence, and solemnly committed themselves to a 
career politically so positively in contradiction to the 
whole spirit and teaching of the age. Neither, indeed, 
were the principles so subversive of liberty in other 
countries altogether without practical recognition or 
force in the forms of government prevailing in the 
original American colonies. It was only in the course of 
years and through hard persistent struggle that the ele- 
ments of despotism, so dominant in the Old World, 
were eliminated from the political creed of the New. 
Gradually, however, and one after another, were these 
elements neutralized or relegated into the past, until, 
finally, the sublime conceptions underlying the progress 
of the last century came forth triumphant, in the warm 
and fostering sunlight of a growing national intelligence, 
distinctly recognized, and in a way not to be misunder- 



m THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

stood, demonstrating for all times their inherennt su- 
periority, their quickening energy, their moulding 
power. 

It has been said that two or three main ideas con- 
stitute the basis of the social theory of the United 
States ; that these ideas, first combined in the New 
England colonies, now extend their influence over the 
whole American world. Underlying all outward or- 
ganizations, however, is chiefly the idea of liberty- 
civil and political — with all it involves of equality and 
of right, of privilege and protection. But for the dis- 
tinct recognition of this all-comprehending idea and 
for its complete realization in the governmental forms 
and institutions of our country, especially are we in- 
debted to the Bible — to the widely diffused principles 
of a divine revelation. 

I. For. first of all, it is to the Bible that we are to 
luok as to the only authorative declaration of the right 
of man to be free. More and more, as its light pre- 
vails, does the conviction grow that the Bible is the 
only true and original bill of human rights ; that it is 
the great charter of our liberties ; God's own summary 
of all the rights and privileges natural and inalienable 
to humanity. 

And certainly it is something in the interests of 
liberty to have the rights of humanity thus authorita- 
tively exhibited and proclaimed : to have them ex- 
plicitly stated and distinctly voiced to the world in the 
utterance of a wisdom that is infallible, from the de- 
cisions of which there is no appeal. Through all the 
ages indeed had the spirit of liberty yearned for some 
such authorative declaration of the rights of humanity 
— struggling ever to voice its fervors, however fruit- 
lessly, to listless ears, in rhapsody and in song. With 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 463 

increasing solemnity and distinctness were its claims 
from time to time enunciated, in humble petitions, in 
solemn leagues and covenants, in charters and consti- 
tutions and bills of right, until in the seventy-sixth year 
of the eighteenth century, they found their most start- 
ling expression in the words of that noble Declaration 
of Independence, of which Buckle, in his history of 
civilization, says that it ought to be hung up in the 
nursery of every king, and emblazoned on the porch of 
every royal palace. The process thus tending to a ver- 
bal expression or declaration of the rights of man has 
been exceedingly slow, gradually advancing from the 
most imperfect utterances to a full and vigorous state- 
ment in documentary forms. Just in proportion as the 
truth has been thoroughly evangelical and widely dis- 
seminated, have these rights been distinctly apprehend- 
ed and emphatically enunciated. This accounts for 
the more rapid growth and outspoken vindication of 
liberal principles since the Reformation. Of all time, 
however, the most advanced human utterance is the im- 
mortal document of 1776. In it first took shape and 
crystallized forever those conceptions of Right evolved 
in the struggle of ages. And I suppose there are not 
wanting those who think the principles of that great 
document due simply to the genius and patriotism of 
the men who wrote and signed it, and for its mainte- 
nance pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes 
and their sacred honor ! On the contrary, I claim for 
the Declaration of Independence a divine origin. I 
claim that that honored instrument was but the gather- 
ing up and reiteration in another form of principles 
that had previously and for ages existed in the sacred 
volume. This is a vastly more ancient and authorita- 
tive Declaration of Rights, and of which that noble in- 



404 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

strument was but a transcript, and under the circum- 
stances a most heroic human utterance. If during that 
eventful hour, in which as one has said, was poured into 
the monumental act of independence the soul of the 
continent — if in that eventful hour there brooded over 
the mind of Jefferson the genius of liberty, to no less 
extent brooded there the genius of the Bible ; if, prompt- 
ed by patriotism, he seized his pen, it was in the light 
of inspiration that he guided it. 

Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, with its 
distinct enunciation of human rights is, it seems to me, 
just one of those things the indispensable condition to 
the existence of which is a widely-diffused knowledge 
of the Bible. We can but faintly conceive of the shock 
imparted to the reigning despots of the world by that 
first bold word of the Declaration, as with a terrible 
emphasis it rang out into all lands the revolutionary 
creed of an outraged and suffering people, "All men 
are created equal." At that word went down the divine 
right of kings. At that word went down hereditary 
sovereignty, crumbled the foundations of old dynasties, 
titled aristocracy reeled from its dizzy height, and van- 
ished forever the pretentions of caste and governing 
classes. At that word the people rose triumphant, 
crowned and sceptered, with royalty robed, with pre- 
rogatives absolute. "And the slave, where'er he cow- 
ered, felt the soul within him climb to the awful verge 
of manhood." At that word a new era dawned, and 
onward into a brighter century strode a new nation : a 
giant disenthralled, the very earth shaking beneath its 
majestic tread. 

But is the truth thus grandly emphasized in the Dec- 
laration, self-evident ? Whatever the evidence, convic- 
tion at jleastjwas wanting. JJThe serfdom and the vas- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 465 

salage of the people of most nations through many cen- 
turies anterior to the date of our independence, stagger 
our faith in the assertion that the fact of the natural 
equality of all men is self-evident. Indeed, that kings 
and nobles have a nature of their own and have no kin, 
that they are separate links, wrought of gold or other 
precious material, and are not to be incorporated into 
the old rusty chain of ordinary being, is a suspicion 
that has not even yet quite faded from the minds of the 
masses of the people of many lands. Government is a 
necessity. To this necessity men readily succumb. In 
the course of affairs, Might makes Right — the strongest 
rule. This is recognized as the established order of 
things ; to think of any other as possible is treasonable. 
Under this order the subject is born. What right has 
he to question its legitimacy ? Is his condition that of 
a serf or slave? It is accepted as normal and un- 
changeable. Natural sense of justice, however, is not 
altogether obliterated, but under the infliction of patent 
wrong, rouses into indignant protest, into spasmodic 
resistance — yet unsupported by any authoritative sanc- 
tions, and having no clearly-defined aim, the feeling 
soon subsides or exhausts itself into blind endeavor, 
and to no avail. Something definite is needed. This 
the Bible supplies. It brings to light, and with an irre- 
fragable distinctness plants in the human consciousness 
the conviction of the essential equality of all men. It 
not only quickens intensely, but vindicates effectually, 
in all, and in behalf of all, the sense of justice and the 
sense of brotherhood, and thus the Word becomes the 
only authoritative declaration of the right of man to 
be free. 

I know, indeed, that just here it may be said that 
the instinct of liberty in the nature of man is sufficiently 



466 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

strong to assert itself independently of the Bible. But 
while admitting the force of natural impulse in this di- 
rection. I deny that any merely human or instinctively 
originated assertion of the rights of man can be suffi- 
ciently explicit or authoritative to command the respect 
of those whose interest it is that those rights should be 
ignored or withheld. For while the love of freedom is 
strong, the love of power is equally strong, so that the 
force of the one passion has ever been met by the force 
of the other : so that in the absence of the truth of the 
Bible, as a recognized ultimate tribunal to which thev 
could appeal, these conflicting forces have only wasted 
themselves in fruitless strivings for recognition and su- 
premacy, or as a last resort, referred their claims to 
the adjudication of the battlefield. 

And I believe there is a disposition on the part of 
many to look to the sword and bayonet as the greatest 
instruments for achieving the world's freedom. These, 
it is held, are the world's regenerators. Hence it is no 
unusual thing to hear men talking of the immense ad- 
vantages gained to the cause of liberty by this or that 
war, from this or that conflict of the nations. But how 
little has in this way been gained to the cause of liberty 
is evident from the fact that the sword endorses as of- 
ten the claims of the oppressor as it does those of the 
oppressed. I know that war has been called the highest 
trial of right. But, O, how terrible the tribunal ! how 
tearful the cost of prosecution : how unnatural the 
pleadings, and withal, how arbitrary, how unsatisfac- 
tory the decision. Alas ! for the right when its claims 
are adjudicated by a tribunal whose only stern arbitra- 
ment is that Might makes Right. ■■' It is a profane bur- 
lesque in which two frenzied brutes are set to arbitra- 
ting in their own way the claims of their respective mas- 



I 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 467 

ters." What can possibly be got of it in the way of an 
intelligent endorsement of our nature's instinctively- 
originated demand for freedom ? It is a blind force,, 
crowning its heroes indiscriminately. What avails it 
though the crown be lifted from the head of one tyrant 
if it is only to fall on the head of another? And yet 
this is the shifting process of which war is usually the 
instrument. 

And even though admitting, as I am not unwilling 
to do, the divine interposition as determining the issues 
of the battlefield, it in no respect modifies my convic- 
tion of the utter insufficiency of war as an endorsement 
of our nature's claim to freedom. Victor Hugo sees, 
in the falling of a few drops of rain more or less, as at 
the battle of Waterloo, a divine interposition baffling 
the skill and securing the overthrow of the greatest 
usurper of modern times, while on the other hand have 
been witnessed, in circumstances equally insignificant, 
interposition seemingly most disastrous to the hopes of 
the oppressed, securing to the hand of despotism a yet 
firmer grasp, and to its scepter a more absolute sway. 
Yes, God interposes, and always so as to satisfy Him- 
self, but seldom so as to satisfy those who look for im- 
mediate results. For centuries, perchance, his inter- 
positions may to us all seem to be indirect contradic- 
tions to the end He is actually aiming at. He may be 
said to be always interposing for the right, yet often so 
as is seemingly in favor of the wrong. It is difficult to 
tell precisely where (rod's place is on the battlefield. The 
general presumption is that he leads in the van of the 
largest and best disciplined squad. The fact is, to all view- 
ing them independently of the Bible, the interpositions 
of Providence are meaningless. To all such they talk on 
both sides of the question, as loudly for the wrong as 



468. THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

for the right. Besides, we get out of patience waiting 
on Providence, for it is evident that whatever, through 
the sword and bayonet, it may have to say to the world 
in behalf of liberty, it has been so long telling its story 
that one nation after another has perished from the 
earth during the utterance of the first few sentences. 

" But of all this fighting,''' you say, "'has nothing- 
come in the way of a satisfactory endorsement of hu- 
man rights?" In itself considered nothing, nothing! 
War, it is true, has its mission. It is for the race a 
terrible discipline, yet of no avail where instruction is 
wanting. It may shatter the thrones of despotism, and 
by invading the established order of things, prepare the 
way for the planting of free institutions. It may re- 
move the impediments and break down the barriers in- 
tercepting human progress — yet what of all this, so long 
as, owing to the absence of the truth of the Bible and 
the moral forces engendered by it, the world is too 
stupid to realize or too imbecile to seize its great oppor- 
tunity. I lavish no eulogies on war. It is at best the 
bloody path along which truth may lead her votaries to 
the goal of liberty — to which goal, however, there is 
certainly always a more excellent way. 

In all the great wars through which our country has 
passed in its progress through the century now closing, 
the truth, as an element determining in each the issue in 
the interest of liberty, has not been wanting. Appeal- 
ing to the supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude 
of their intentions, the patriots of the Revolution en- 
listed in their great struggle. Chief of all was their in- 
tention to be free. In the light of a broad intelligence 
was this intention formed. To them had the truth re- 
vealed independence as a legitimate goal. To them 
was the truth not only a distinct disclosure, but also an 



I 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 469 

authoritative endorsement of every right asserted by 
them in their conflict with the crown. Had it not been 
for the moral support of the truth, independence could 
not have been achieved. It was simply the vigor of 
Christian principle, closely allied with the spirit of lib- 
erty, that was so grandly exhibited in all the heroism of 
those trying times. It was the divinely inspired con- 
viction that his cause was just, and of heaven approved, 
that gave to the soldier of the Revolution patience in 
struggle, fortitude in danger — that gave to his patriot- 
ism sublimity, and to his faith a steadfastness unshaken 
in the very extremity of destitution and of peril. As the 
determining element in the war for independence, was 
evangelical truth from time to time distinctly rec- 
ognized by the representatives of the people, not only 
in the frequent setting apart of days of general humilia- 
tion, fasting and prayer — but especially in certain acts 
of Congress, in one instance directing the importation 
of 20,000 copies of the Bible ; and in another approv- 
ing, as an undertaking pious and laudable, and sub- 
servient to the interests of religion, the printing, by a 
citizen of Philadelphia, of an edition of the Scriptures. 
In the immortal Washington piety and patriotism were 
powers incarnate. How implicitly, amid the darkness 
so often gathered upon his pathway, while in command 
of the army, did he lean upon the arm of the infinite 
disposer of events, as, in the light of a divine inspira- 
tion, he saw that arm stretched out 111 behalf of the 
cause he had so unselfishly espoused ! Who can fail to 
be touched, in the contemplation of the profoundly 
reverential spirit breathing in all the public utterances 
of this honored sage ? In Him we see the spirit of lib- 
erty personified, tendering its grateful homage at the 
shrine of the infinite wisdom whose agency in all its 



470 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

conflicts and in all its triumphs it devoutly recognizes, 
acknowledging the guidance of the Invisible Hand as it 
led the struggling colonies through grief and battle to 
the heights of freedom, political independence and re- 
nown. 

I know you are thinking of our late Civil War, and 
of how it resulted favorably to millions as the authori- 
tative endorsement of their claim to freedom. " It 
freed the slave,''' you say. Only incidentally true. In 
this conflict Might and Right were on the same side, 
and, in the order of Divine Providence, they triumphed 
together. Yet were not the advantages resulting to the 
cause of liberty due essentially either to the conflict or 
to the victory, but to the potency of eternal truth ; to 
the enlightened judgment of the nation, finding its 
grandest expression in Abraham Lincoln's proclamation 
of universal emancipation, a divine decree humanly ut- 
tered, and without the utterance of which, the war, 
however terminating, would have left the enslaved mil- 
lions just where it found them, sighing for liberty, but 
without power to grasp it? For what avails it, though 
the ploughshare be driven over the earth until its entire 
surface is leveled, if no husbandman come to cast in the 
seeds of a fruitful harvest ? True, the plowshare had 
passed on before ; the proclamation was but a seed of 
living truth which, though scattered with a faltering 
hand, yet fell into the rich furrows of the prepared 
earth, where it is now germinating, and unless violently 
exterminated, or choked by the springing thorn, will 
yet bring forth fruit an hundred fold. 

What the cause of liberty demands, then, in order 
to its triumph in the earth, is a declaration of human 
rights, in authority and decisiveness infinitely trans- 
ceeding any merely human or instinctively originated 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 471 

assertion of them — a declaration not dependent for its 
endorsement on human impulse or human aspiration, 
nor yet upon the doubtful issues of the battlefield — but 
solely upon the infalliable rectitude of a tribunal recog- 
nized by the enlightened judgment of mankind as ulti- 
mate and absolute. In other words, God himself must 
speak in behalf of these rights, or they must forever 
fail of an adequate vindication. But God has spoken, 
and in thus speaking has decreed for the race no less 
a civil and political than a moral emancipation. Here 
in the Bible is a declaration of human rights, issuing 
from the Supreme Wisdom, Justice and Power of the 
universe. Herein is the voice of God superadded to 
the instincts of our nature, and its claims established 
by an authority, the decisions of which the issues of 
human conflicts are alike incompetent to invalidate or 
repeal. The Bible is to the world God's solemn edict 
of enfranchisement. It is God's independence bell, 
forever swinging in the dome of the universe, into all 
the earth ringing the knell of tyranny — with deep-toned 
emphasis proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, 
unto all the inhabitants thereof. 

Thus in our country, from the very beginning, has 
the truth of the Bible operated in the interests of 
political freedom and enlargement. Through its silent, 
all-pervading energy, it has shaped the development 
of the mind of the American people in the direction of 
the most enlarged conceptions of human rights, grad- 
ually eliminating from their political creed all that sel- 
fishness which so tinctures even the most liberal of the 
governments of the old world. It is, from the very 
nature of the truth, impossible that it should have 
operated otherwise. It is an inspiration of new ideas, 
and of principles, which, as intuitively recognized as 



472 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

supremely rational and authoritative, must, in their 
unfolding, irresistibly subvert all those false concep- 
tions of which usurpation and despotism are the in- 
evitable results. In the entire breadth of its revela- 
tion proclaiming Jehovah Supreme Ruler and Judge of 
the world, and his law the highest expression of right, 
it has wrought out for the people of these lands politi- 
cal independence and a disenthralled national life ; by 
asserting authoratively the great fact of the brotherhood 
of the race, it has invaded the exclusiveness of clan- 
ship and monopoly, and blended with the fervors of 
patriotism the enthusiasm of humanity ; by declaring 
the common origin, nature and destiny of man, it has 
established the natural equality of all, supplanted the 
doctrine of the divine right of kings, neutralized the 
claims of hereditary sovereignty, exploded the preten- 
sions of caste and governing classes, obliterated the 
distinction of slave and master, and confirmed to each 
his inalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness. Hence, just in proportion as the prin- 
ciples of the Bible are diffused abroad and interwoven 
with the sentiments of any individual or community 
of individuals, will the great interests of civil liberty 
be promoted, and all the rights of humanity are pro- 
tected. For it is impossible that the shadow of des- 
potism should rest on the land, in every habitation of 
which burns brightly the lamp of divine truth. It is 
impossible to enslave that people whom ignorance of 
the truth has not first brutalized. The chains of thral- 
dom can only be riveted in the dark ; bring the victim 
into the light, and his fetters dissolve. " Surely in 
vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." "And 
ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free." 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 473 

II. But, again, the truth of the Bible operates ef- 
fectually in. the interests of liberty, through the moral 
energy it imparts to the soul. It frees the conscience, 
and thus frees the man. 

The hope of any nation for the blessing of civil 
liberty, while the conscience of her people is in fetters, 
is preposterous in the extreme ; for the inevitable ten- 
dency of all restraint upon the freedom of a people 
in this respect is to reduce them to a state of depend- 
ence and ignoble vassalage. It is simply to bring in 
its train all the horrors of civil despotism. Hence the 
policy of all despotic governments has ever been to 
control *he religion of their subjects ; for this control 
once acquired, the chains of political tyranny are 
easily riveted. So that not until freedom from all such 
unnatural and debasing restraints is asserted, can the 
blessing of civil liberty be realized. Can civil liberty 
and the Roman inquisition live together? 

It is impossible that the people should be free 
politically who are slaves ecclesiastically. That is not 
a free government that in the slightest degree inter- 
feres with the conscience of her people. In vain does 
any nation boast of her advanced civilization of her 
illustrious warriors, her orators, poets and philosophers, 
her men of genius and renown ; in vain does she ascend 
to the summit of aggrandizement and power ; in vain 
does she extend and strengthen her alliances, and in- 
trench herself amid strongest fortifications ; in vain 
does she multiply her resources and augment her armies ; 
in vain are her arsenals crowded with arms and stored 
with ammunition ; in vain do her navies thicken on all 
the seas, and her flag float in triumph from the towers 
of hostile cities, or cast its shadow over conquered 
realms — in vain, I say, if, after all, within that nation 

3i 



474 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

there lives a single human spirit that may not voice his 
religious convictions to the world, or his aspirations to 
the ear of God, save in accordance with the dictates 
of a dominant hierarchy, or in forms prescribed by the 
State. The government of that nation is but a des- 
potism, and her subjects but bondsmen still. Liberty 
of conscience must precede all other liberty. The au- 
thority bearing sway in my moral nature must in- 
evitably dominate all my being. 

Hence, all decisive movements in the direction of 
civil liberty have involved, first of all, the assertion of 
the rights of the moral nature of man. That great re- 
action commencing with the Reformation, was chiefly 
against the encroachments of authority on the domain 
of conscience. From the eve of All-Saints' Day, in 
15 1 7, when to the gate of the old Castle Church in 
Wittenburg, Luther nailed his ninety-five propositions, 
proclaiming himself ready to defend them against the 
world — to the day in which into Plymouth harbor the 
Mayflower wafted in safety its precious burden of heroic 
life, the great struggle agitating Europe was not so 
much for civil and political, as for religious liberty. 
The one idea in all that struggle, forcing its way to the 
light, was religious toleration. The history of the 
growth of this idea is but the history of Protestant- 
ism. On this idea hinged the whole question as be- 
tween the Reformers and the Papal hierarchy. Here, 
also, hinged the whole question as between the Cove- 
nanters, of England and Scotland, and the hierarchy of 
their times. Not, however, in any of the countries of 
the old world, but on these shores was this idea first 
to be realized. With a view to its enlargement and 
full unfolding, had God reserved this continent. 
Hither was it conveyed by those heroic bands, who, 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 475 

from the hot resentment of England's reigning sov- 
ereigns, fled their native land. And yet not even here 
did this idea attain to full practical recognition and 
force without a struggle. Both in Virginia and Massa- 
chusetts was it for generations compelled to contend 
with that tendency to spiritual despotism from which 
even the most advanced intelligence of the times had 
not as yet fully extricated itself. In both these lead- 
ing colonies were Church and Statefor many years most 
intimately blended. Gradually, however, was the 
theocratic idea, with the Popish element of coercion in 
matters of religion, obliterated from the theory out 
of which grew the American Republic. To this result, 
doubtless, did the early founding of the State of Rhode 
Island and Maryland, on the principle of full liberty of 
conscience, greatly contribute. Thus, in one State after 
another, liberty of conscience came boldly to the front, 
asserting itself in opposition to prelatical pretensions 
on the one hand, and puritanical bigotry on the other, 
until, finally, the general government declared the wor- 
ship of God to be free — prohibiting the making of any 
law regulating an establishment of religion or prohibit- 
ing the free exercise thereof. Thus was the voluntary 
principle, as opposed to that of force, involved in the 
union of Church and State, introduced into the Con- 
stitution, and established as fundamental in the gov- 
ernment of the United States. This was an advance 
beyond all precedent. There was not, it is said, on 
all the earth, nor had there been in all history another 
example of the kind. The union of Church and State, 
with all of embarrassment entailed by an economy so 
in contravention of the purpose of God and the rights 
of man, is then another of those things which our coun- 
try, and as she entered upon the century now closing, 



47(> THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

cast oft' and left behind. Of this incubus thus at the 
very beginning relieved, she shrinks to-day from as- 
suming it again, having, in the light of the guiding star 
of a full toleration threaded so successfully her way 
through all the intricacies of the intervening hundred 
years. Indeed, on the pathway of not a few of the 
bewildered nations of the earth is the light of this 
guiding star even now beginning to dawn. Of the na- 
tions, not a few are beginning to recognize, in what is 
called " disestablishment, " the only key to the solution 
of those hard problems now beyond endurance per- 
plexing their cabinets. 

But just here, especially, do we see how effectually 
the truth of the Bible operates in the interests of lib- 
erty. For, wherever existing, this truth is found assert- 
ing, in contradiction to all State and ecclesiastical as- 
sumptions, the rights of conscience and the right of 
speech. It is in the soul of man a sense of justice and 
of mercy, and of obligation to the highest sovereignty 
of the universe — an inspiration of all moral sentiments, 
the source of all aspiration for enlargement on earth 
and immortality in heaven. Claiming for itself absolute 
jurisdiction over the moral nature of man, it rescues that 
nature from the grasp of the usurper, and, by awaken- 
ing therein a sense of individual accountability, lifts 
it above the enactments of senates and the decrees of 
councils, and places it at the immediate disposal of 
God. Enthroning itself amid the intricacies of that 
nature, through all restraints upon its development it 
will force its way irresistibly. There is nothing so 
irrepressible as a human conscience freed and fired by 
the Word of God. Bigotry may forge her chains, and 
persecution light her fires, but the unfolding of such a 
conscience, in word and in deed, will be in spite of 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 477 1 

them all. The bearer of such a conscience is not a 
man of sealed lips. He can never subside into quiet 
or repose. He is not his own. He is subject to 
the mastery of forces whose source is eternal in the 
bosom of God — that recognize no earthly limitations ; 
that spurn interdiction and all finite control. He can- 
not be still .' There was not, in the best days of the 
Roman empire, power sufficient in her throne or 
legions, to repress the utterances of that great apostle 
to the Gentiles, who said : " So as much as in me is, I 
am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome 
also." God had said to Paul, Speak! and speak he 
did, until imperial Rome trembled on all her hills, and 
earth's subverted despotisms have felt his power. Thus, 
through its immediate action upon the human con- 
science, does the truth of the Bible operate in the in- 
terests of liberty. It rescues the human intellect from 
the domination of tyrants, establishes the right of pri- 
vate judgment, unsettling the claims of the dictator, 
and thus throwing down the barriers in the way of free 
inquiry, says to the honest searcher after truth, Think 
for thyself ; and to the oppressed and down-trodden, 
Speak for thyself. 

This is an age of vast and varied impulses. Of all, 
however, the grandest is that now, everywhere working 
for the disenthrallment of the conscience of the race, an 
impulse which, from the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, evergrowing, shall never cease upon the heart of 
humanity until the last civil and ecclesiastical bolt is 
riven, and the world's emancipation accomplished. 
The source of this impulse it is not difficult to deter- 
mine. The Bible — yes, it was the Bible that told 
Martin Luther he was a free man ; that God is greater 
than the Pope, and that to him obedience must be paid 



' 478 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

in spite of devils or the thunders of the Vatican. And 
no sooner had the truths of that Bible thus seized upon 
the heart of this poor Augustine friar, than he indig- 
nantly burst the fetters of superstition, and from the 
darkness of centuries emerging into the light of the 
gospel, stood forth forever disenthralled, the giant de- 
fender of the rights of man and the sovereignty of God. 
"I recognize," said he, " no authority as infallible but 
the sacred Scriptures." This was the tocsin peal of the 
Reformation. With this single utterance he startled 
Europe ; this he reiterated until, as a living creed, it 
was enshrined in the conscience of the Protestant world. 
This was the single lever with which he upheaved and 
bared to the world's indignant gaze the foundations of 
the vilest usurpation that ever blistered earth or chal- 
lenged heaven. But the spirit of liberty, that had so 
long slumbered within the lids of Luther's Bible, not 
only thus communicated with his own great heart, but, 
as he turned the hallowed pages, leaped forth from its 
hiding place of ages, and spurning alike the seclusion 
of the university and the convent, diffused itself all over 
Europe, erecting proud monuments to freedom in many 
of the states and empires of the continent — touching 
even, with talismanic power, the islands of the sea. 
Thus was originated and diffused abroad the spirit of 
liberty, that martyr spirit which in Latimer and Ridley 
was more than a match for the intolerance of bloody 
Mary's reign — that sturdy spirit that so struggled and 
wrought in the Puritans in the times of the proud Eliza- 
beth and the pusillanimous James ; that unconquerable 
spirit to which Milton, no less a reformer than a bard, 
gave utterance in words, as one has said, that "went 
crashing through Europe, upon the drowsy ears of hier- 
archs and tyrants, like the roll of a thousand thunders 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 479 

that same spirit which finally, driven by persecution to 
sequester itself in a few hospitable hearts, sought and 
found a last and safe retreat amid the yearning soli- 
tudes of this Western world. Chief among the repre- 
sentatives of this spirit on these shores were the found- 
ers of the States of Rhode Island, Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania — Roger Williams, Lord Baltimore and William 
Penn — men in all of whom, however diverse their relig- 
ious creeds, the genius of the Bible had, in magnanim- 
ity and breadth of view, wrought out its legitimate re- 
sults. Through the practical efforts of such men within 
the sphere of legislation and government, supplemented 
by the pure evangelism of the age, of which George 
Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were the representa- 
tive organs, was that spirit of religious toleration and 
independent inquiry that had but partially kindled the 
heart of Luther, and Calvin and Knox, thoroughly and 
forever enfranchised, and given the freedom of the 
world. 

This spirit is now abroad in all the earth. The last 
link of the old chain that once fettered it, is now melt- 
ing in the white heat of an advanced Christian civiliza- 
tion. Not that the spirit of intolerance is dead, but sim- 
ply dying ; its hold upon the nations to-day is only a sort 
of nervous death-grip, slowly relaxing as its life goes 
out. In many of the leading governments of the world, 
as in Russia, Austria, Italy, Spain and the German em- 
pire, it has suffered a sort of decapitation in legislative 
enactments and in the dissolving of Concordats and the 
unions of Church and State ; so that what is left is but 
a headless trunk, terrible only through the contortions 
indicative of a lingering, yet rapidly waning animation. 
The Word of God is not bound, so neither can be the 
spirit of toleration and independent inquiry engendered 



480 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

of it. And the glory of the century just closing is the 
vantage ground which, through the wide diffusion of 
the Scriptures, it has secured to those great ideas that 
are now gradually supplanting the foundations of des- 
potism in all the world. For it is a fact of history, and 
seriously to be pondered by all, that just in proportion 
to the practical enlargement of the spirit of religious 
toleration thus originated, has been the progress of 
civil and political liberty in the world, and indeed of 
all that appertains to the advancement of the race. For 
Avherever this spirit has touched upon the face of so- 
ciety, in all its wanderings from the days of Luther 
until now, it has elicited sublime responses to its quick- 
ening power ; everywhere are witnessed the expanding 
germs of a regenerated life, the pre- intimations of the 
beauty and the bloom of a recovered Paradise, while on 
every monument erected by its still increasing votaries 
to perpetuate the memory of its conflicts and its victor- 
ies, glow in characters undimmed and unchanged and 
for the instruction of all the ages, "the words of the great 
apostle of liberty, ''And ye shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make you free.'' 

IH. Liberty, however, to be worth anything, must 
be embodied. It must be organized — exist, not simply 
in spirit or in idea, as a subtle, ethereal essence, vent- 
ing itself in idle talk and fruitless aspirations, but as a 
mighty working practical force, unfolding in permanent 
results, asserting itself in all the forms and institutions 
of an actual government. Thus we find that a funda- 
mental code, combining the humane doctrines of the 
common law with the principles of natural right and 
equity, as deduced from the Bible, and in 1641 adopted 
by the Massachusetts colony, was not inaptly called 
" the Body of Liberties. " Liberty must have a "body." 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 481 

For some such body had the spirit of liberty yearned 
and struggled through all the ages prior to the founding 
of American institutions, and yet how fruitlessly, the 
history of all the ages amply testifies. Much more uni- 
versally had the spirit of oppression succeeded — sadly 
had it been realized and fearfully embodied in systems 
of tyranny and forms of despotism, darkening with their 
shadows all the centuries preceding. 

The spirit of liberty then may exist where its em- 
bodiment is entirely wanting, for the conditions essen- 
tial to the latter the Bible only can originate. Thus 
the restlessness and the tumult of the nations, their wars 
and their rumors of wars, are but the result of the smug- 
glings of this spirit of liberty for recognition in the 
forms and institutions of their governments, but which, 
owing to the limited influence of the Bible upon the 
masses of their people, it is not yet fully competent to 
realize. For you may rest assured that wherever and 
to whatever extent the Bible exists, with a distinct ap- 
prehension of its truth, there and to the same extent 
will the spirit of liberty be kindled, and consequent un- 
rest and disquietude prevail, until that spirit shall have 
been appropriately acknowledged, practically enshrined 
in all the governmental forms and institutions of the 
land. In England, for instance, is the spirit of liberty 
widely diffused, yet only to an extent commensurate 
with the influence of evangelical truth upon the minds 
of the people. Slowly but surely ^is this spirit now sap- 
ping the foundations of old political creeds and dog- 
mas, and in actual forms securing to itself an embodi- 
ment more in harmony with the requirements of its own 
nature and the demands of the age. In this respect 
much has been achieved within the last hundred years. 
It is admitted that at the beginning of the present cen 



482 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

tury the liberties of England were in serious jeopardy. 
In 1795 a law was passed, with the death penalty affixed, 
in which it was manifestly intended to put an end for- 
ever to all popular discussions, either on political or 
religious matters. If a man lent a book without per- 
mission of the magistrate, for such grievous crime he 
was to be fined a hundred pounds a day. The country 
was ruled by a system of absolute terror ; the spirit of 
the government, under George the Third, was that of 
unmitigated despotism. But the spirit of liberty, con- 
sequent upon a widely-diffused knowledge of the truth, 
could not be subverted. It triumphed then ; it is vic- 
torious still. In vain do the aristocratic and privileged 
classes of society set themselves in opposition to this 
spirit, or to the mighty forces originated by it, and 
now silently working for their ultimate and irretrievable 
overthrow. In vain, I say, do they seek to annihilate 
or to hold in check a spirit so disastrous to their pre- 
tensions, and every now and then blazing out in the 
ominous and irrepressible appeals of a people, of whose 
progressive ideas and liberal tendencies there is already 
a great and constantly increasing army of distinguished 
champions and representatives. If, then, during the last 
century, there has been realized in England a more 
rapid and symmetrical embodiment of the spirit of 
liberty than has been realized in most other countries 
of the world, it is simply because there has been in her 
millions of broader apprehension of the right, conse- 
quent upon a more widely-diffused knowledge of the 
truth of the Bible. 

In their reception or rejection, then, of this book is 
involved the issue of the struggle of any people for the 
blessing of a free constitutional government. Witness 
the strugg-lings, the convulsive, yet fruitless efforts of 



I 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 483 

infidel France to attain the status of civil liberty. 
What bloody scenes yet await that hapless nation we 
know not ; the past we know is full of horrors, as it is 
of. failures. In her frantic strugglings for liberty, the 
rapidity of revolution has only been equalled by the 
flight of the decades of her troubled history. But in 
her progress from revolution to revolution, what real 
advances has she made towards the goal of her aspira- 
tions? You may point to her advanced civilization ; to 
her refinement ; to her wealth and learning and splen- 
dor of scientific achievement. But where are the lib- 
erties of France ? Enshrined, it may be said, in the 
institution of her new-born republic. True ! And yet 
he must be blessed with no ordinary degree of hopeful- 
ness who will venture a flattering prediction with respect 
to the future of liberty, on guarantees furnished by an 
experiment so indefinite and so immature. That in 
France the element of evangelical truth has been entirely 
wanting no one will affirm. Increasingly, through the 
last hundred years, has this element been gaining on the 
atheism that inaugurated the reign of terror. Liberal 
principles have been correspondingly developed and 
enshrined in the institutions of government. And yet 
the advance has been slow, irregular, spasmodic. And 
even with respect to the present existing government of 
France, I doubt whether hope is exceedingly buoyant. 
On the contrary, if I mistake not, there is a latent 
widely-diffused suspicion that of the past the future will 
only be the melancholy repetition — that the heated pro- 
cess through which it is now proposed to embody in 
actual forms and subordinate to practical ends, the 
spirit of liberty so long brooding over France, will yet, 
like all its predecessors, prove only a disastrous failure. 
Indeed, it cannot be otherwise. The suspicion is 



184 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD 

rooted in the conviction everywhere growing that civil 
liberty cannot exist in the absence of a thorough evan- 
gelism : that it cannot build on quicksands, that it must 
have solid rock. Enlightened Christendom will stake 
but little on the efforts of that people for constitutional 
liberty, who. while going about in their public places 
defacing the images of their tyrants, yet on the tombs 
of their dead carve the atheistical inscription, "Death 
is an eternal sleep." A nation of infidels can never be 
a nation of freemen. The mean between tyranny on 
the one hand and lawlessness on the other, can only be 
maintained by a nation controlled by the principles of 
the Bible. On one or the other of these rocks will that 
vessel be wrecked whose ballast is not virtue — whose 
chart is not the Word of God. 

It is in our country, however, and on this continent 
only, that the spirit of liberty, so long a wanderer in 
the earth, has at last reached the goal of all its strug- 
gles, and in the highest form of civil government exist- 
ing, realized that for which in other lands it had for 
centuries sighed in vain. When first this wonder-work- 
ing spirit touched these shores, it was friendless and 
fugitive, and weak in every other relation, and strong 
only in its alliance with the Word of God. Here it 
found a great work to be done. A continent must be 
pervaded and leavened with its influence : alien tenden- 
cies must be subverted ; a free constitutional govern- 
ment framed : equal laws enacted : the just limits of 
power defined, and all the rights of the citizen pro- 
tected. Out of the crude elements then at command 
thus to construct a government, involving an equal ad- 
justment of rights and a proper distribution of powers 
— a government of which the world furnished no model 
or design — was indeed a mighty undertaking, and one 




THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 485 

for the accomplishment of which the mere spirit of lib- 
erty, in the absence of any higher guidance, was wholly 
incompetent. It was a perilous work, a delicate task— 
for the achievement of which must be combined with 
the stern heart the unfaltering hand, with the fervors of 
the patriot the wisdom of the sage. It was not a result 
to be achieved instinctively or through the force of 
mere impulse, but through an intelligent working under 
the guidance of eternal principles. Where then, could 
these guiding principles be found ? Only in the Bible. 
They are not self-evident, as held by the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence, but revealed of God. 
The Bible, however, was not wanting. It was every- 
where. In the closest alliance then with the principles 
of this sacred volume and under their special guidance 
did the spirit of liberty enter upon its great mission 
here, plying its exhaustless energies for the building of 
this mighty government. The result we have. It is 
the achievement of the century— the solution of the 
problem of government for all ages. 

It would be instructive as well as interesting to note 
the process of the development in outward constitu- 
tional forms, of the spirit of liberty as exhibited in the 
history of these lands. To indicate a single decisive 
stage in this process, however, is all that we attempt. 
The Continental Congress, having served its purpose, 
had passed away. The old Articles of Confederation, 
found to be an insufficient expression of the disen- 
thralled national life, must be superseded by a bond of 
union more perfect. A general convention was called, 
and appointed to meet in Philadelphia, in May, 1787. 
In this convention were combined the wisdom, strength 
and experience of the nation. Illustrious citizens of 
the States were there — men of the most eminent abili- 



486 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

ties — highly distinguished for talent, character and large 
experience in public affairs. Washington >was there, 
presiding over the assembly. Such the men on whom 
devolved the responsibility incident to that most critical 
hour in our country's history, a responsibility greater 
even than that which years before many of them had 
assumed, when, defiant of the ignominy of imputed 
treason, they affixed their names to the Declaration of 
Independence — the responsibility of framing not only 
for themselves, but for all generations, that great 
charter of our liberties, the Constitution of the United 
States of America — the foundation stone of a structure, 
than which none more magnificent has ever originated 
in the genius or wisdom of man. Of the difficulties by 
these men encountered in the progress of their work, it 
is not possible clearly to conceive. So great and so in- 
surmountable, seemingly, were those difficulties, as that 
even the mind of Washington foreboded disaster. And 
yet even there a distinct recognition of the truth was 
not wanting. There was in that convention men whose 
knowledge of the truth became practical in a sublime 
faith that lifted them into a correspondence with the de- 
mands of the hour. For long days, says one, they la- 
bored apparently in vain, anarchy and ruin staring them 
in the face. At length, Benjamin Franklin rose and 
said, "1 will suggest, Mr. President, the propriety of 
nominating and appointing, before we separate, a chap- 
lain to this convention, whose duty it shall be uni- 
formly to assemble with us and introduce the business 
of each day by an address to the Creator of the uni- 
verse and the Governor of all nations, beseeching Him 
to preside in our councils ; enlighten our minds with a 
portion of heavenly wisdom ; influence our hearts with 
a love of truth and justice, and crown our labors with 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 487 

complete and abundant success." There was at this 
moment a strange light in Washington's eye. His coun- 
tenance was radiant with approbation. Nor were the 
members of the convention generally less affected. It 
was, in the moment of its greatest peril, and by its 
highest representatives, the recognition of our country's 
dependence on God, and of the duty of appealing to 
Him for guidance amid difficulties out of which no mere 
human wisdom was competent to lead the way. 

And here let it be distinctly remembered that what- 
ever embodiment of the spirit of liberty in the forms 
and institutions of our government has been realized, 
it is owing simply to the firm alliance of that spirit 
with the truth of the Bible. It is this alliance that has 
made our government what it is. Under the sacred 
auspices of evangelical truth has the spirit of liberty 
wrought out on this continent its grand result, not in- 
stantaneously, but slowly, painfully, and through a long 
period of patient working, in reverent subordination to 
the eternal principles of right and order which God 
Himself ordains. 

Not, however, that the bond of union between the 
spirit of liberty and the truth of the Bible has, from the 
date of our national independence, been absolutely per- 
fect. The very reverse is the fact in the case. And we 
may safely say that the toil, and the weariness, and the 
interruptions experienced in the progress of the unfold- 
ing of this spirit in the institution of our country, have 
only been in proportion as this bond was imperfect, and 
the truth of the Bible disregarded. Thus, in the results 
of the Federal Convention, though a decided advance 
had been realized, yet had not the goal been reached. 
The embodiment of liberty was not complete. Many 
were the foreign incongruous elements yet to be elimi- 



488 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

nated from the constitution that convention originated. 
It was only through a sad defect in the sacred bond that 
linked our Bible with our liberties, that slavery was 
forced into that constitution, " and the irrepressible 
conflict handed down to the great future." It was a 
terrible enormity, not by any means a legitimate result 
of the unfolding of the true spirit and organic life of 
the nation. It was out of harmony with the principles 
governing its general development, and as such brought 
in its train a series of calamities and interruptions, of 
which a bloody fratricidal war was but the culmination, 
and out of which the spirit of liberty never would have 
emerged — save to be hooted out of the world — had it 
not been that through its recovered alliance with the 
Word of God, the principles of eternal right, it gathered 
strength for its sufferings, wisdom to rectify its errors, 
and grace for repentance, and to make amends for its 
past delinquencies. In the convictions of the people 
of these lands the Bible is more radical and fundamen- 
tal even than the Constitution. It was here in advance 
of the Constitution, and lies nearer the nation's heart. 
It is a higher law, to the requirements of which even 
the provisions of that great instrument have been made 
to conform. Thus, through the action of its truth upon 
the conscience of a self-governing people, have been 
finally and forever eliminated from the national Consti- 
tution and the national life, not only slavery, but with 
it we may say that other most pestilent of all political 
heresies — the doctrine of State Rights. These have 
gone down together. Together have they been branded 
as alien : together relentlessly consigned to the irrevo- 
cable past. Scarcely a wail of the starved ghost of 
either of these evils is now heard in the land. 

IV. The great fact, in the intenser light of the last 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 481) 

century disclosed and beyond all cavil demonstrated, 
is the sovereignty of the people as distinguished from 
sovereignty as exercised by the individual, the minority 
or the privileged classes. The plan of a government 
based on this fact had been furnished in the Constitu- 
tion. It is one thing, however, to put a plan on paper, 
but quite another to carry that plan into effect — to re- 
alize it as a practical result. Will the plan work ? 
Many contingencies are involved. The elective fran- 
chise so widely extended, lying at the base of represen- 
tative government, is certainly something in which, in 
the absence of any test fully to acquiesce, requires no 
little faith in the capabilities of humanity. Is there no 
hazard in such an indiscriminate distribution of sover- 
eignty ? Will not this foundation-stone crumble — give 
svay — sink down under the awful weight of empire ? 
The requisite faith was not wanting. The foundation 
laid, the building commences. In amazement the world 
looks on watching the progress of the grand experiment, 
Steadily, through all the years, though with much of toil 
and partial interruption, the process advances ; proudly 
the superstructure rises — its proportions stately, its base 
eternal. 

Carlyle growls out his dislike of free institutions by 
defining suffrage as "a wondrous system of extracting 
the wisdom of a people by counting their noses, getting 
the hidden essence — vox pofiuli — from thirty millions 
of people, mostly fools." The sense of this sage remark 
is that a popular government is one administered by 
fools. Admitting it to be even so, it is not the only 
form of government liable to such abuse ! Thomas Jef- 
ferson, writing from Europe just before the adoption of 
the federal constitution, says : " There is not a crowned 
head in Europe whose talents or merits would entitle 

32 



490 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any 
parish in America." Again he says: " No race of 
kings has ever presented above one man of common 
sense in twenty generations." Again, in after life, re- 
viewing the sovereigns reigning in Europe during his 
residence there, he says : " Louis XVI. was a fool, of 
my own knowledge, and despite the answers made for 
him at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool, and of 
Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, 
and dispatched two couriers a week one thousand miles 
to let each other know what game they had killed the 
days before. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All 
these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal was an 
idiot by nature. And so was the King of Denmark. 
The King of Prussia, successor to the great Frederic, 
was a mere boy in body as well as in mind. Gustavus, 
of Sweden, and Joseph, of Austria, was really crazy, 
and George, of England, you know was in a strait 
waistcoat. There remained, then, none but old Catha- 
rine, who had been too lately picked up to have lost 
her common sense. So ended the Book of Kings, from 
all of whom the good Lord deliver us." So then it 
seems that popular governments are not the only ones 
in which fools bear sway ! 

Let, then, the cynic sneer, the facts are all the same. 
Never was there a form of government superior to ours, 
the sovereignty of which is invested not in one individ- 
ual, but in multitudes, or, if you please, not in one fool 
but in many, for, if as rulers, fools are so desirable, I am 
sure the more the merrier. And if Carlyle, or any one 
else, deems kings such precious morsels, let him think 
of a government in which all the governed are kings. 
We talk of the crowned heads of Europe, but for every 
one such, bating their idiocy, there are millions in 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 491 

America. I know the comparison is odious, but the 
men I address to-day all have crowns 'on their heads. 
Mine is an audience of kings, the united rulers of a 
great land. And when, through the extension of the 
right of suffrage, the functions of government shall have 
been more widely and equitably distributed among the 
people, women, too, shall be crowned. And though 
the prediction of some that Victoria will be the last to 
occupy the throne of England should be realized, in 
America a myriad of queens will arise, who, with gener- 
ations of kings yet unborn, will wield a scepter of power 
outrivaling far the mightiest that any single potentate 
has ever swayed, a scepter not of gold, but of quality 
more royal, even the decisive ballot, by whose intelli- 
gent, yet noiseless decree, will be shaped the destinies 
and perpetuated far on into the ages the liberties of this 
fair land of ours. 

But while the sovereignty of this land is so widely 
distributed, the only security against its abuse is the 
Christian culture of those who exercise it. The height 
of folly would be to place the crown on the head of any 
people without at the same time placing the Bible in 
their hands to teach them how to wear it. True ! Let 
secular education be as widely diffused as possible. Let 
our common school system be eulogized, and the intel- 
ligence it distributes among the masses be entitled to 
its full share of consideration. And yet, let it not be sup- 
posed that is sufficient. The highest intellectual culture 
may exist independently of civil liberty, but a thor- 
oughly diffused Christianity never can. Over the same 
people the Bible and despotism can never bear sway. 
One or the other must abdicate the throne. We want 
education, but it must be Christian education, an edu- 
cation not only of the intellect, but also of the con 



492 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

science, of the moral nature of the man. Less than a 
hundred years ago, it was held by the governing classes 
in England, that to extend education was only to mul- 
tiply the crime of forgery. True, as applied to mere 
intellectual culture — a distinction, however, unrecog- 
nized by them. An illustration of the tendency of all 
unchristian culture we have in the young Indian chief, 
the son of old Cornplanter, whose very first act on his 
return from school was to subordinate his literary ac- 
quirements to the forging of a note on his father. 

V. Of the advantages of liberty as in the progress 
of the last century realized, it is scarcely necessary 
that I should speak. This wanting, and from the posi- 
tion we this day occupy, we would have looked back 
over the history of the past with feelings much less 
complacent than those of which we are now conscious, 
and only to trace a development in all respects very 
dissimilar from that which now gladdens the eye. Of 
our country it maybe said that she is the, glory of all 
lands. The elements of her greatness are obvious. 
Her resources are inexhaustible. The vastness of her 
territorial domain, the salubrity of her climate, the fer- 
tility of her soil, her mineral wealth, her commercial 
advantages, her teeming population, her exemption 
from famine and wide-wasting pestilence — all are but so 
many elements of greatness, which, as combined in 
their unfolding, must inevitably bear this country of 
ours onward to a position of influence and power un- 
rivaled by any on the face of the earth. 

Vast, however, as these resources may be, they 
would avail but little to national greatness in the ab- 
sence of that highest good of the state, civil and political 
liberty. This is the bright goddess whose magic wand 
elicits these resources, and with strange skill subordinates 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 493 

them to the purpose of national progress and glory. 
This is the one great life-force throned in the nation's 
heart, stimulating to action and to enterprise. "By 
removing all unnatural distinctions and unnecessary re- 
straints, it places all its subjects upon an equality, hold- 
ing forth as the object of possible attainment to the 
humblest citizen, those privileges, honors and emolu- 
ments which in less favored lands are reserved only for 
the few, thus putting in each human breast a spring of 
action which leads to the development of energies and 
capabilities which would otherwise be dormant and 
useless, but which, as thus stimulated and unfolded, be- 
come the inexhaustible sources of a nation's prosperity, 
as well as of its continued and unlimited advancement 
in all that pertains to the happiness and well-being of 
our race." Yes, 

Tis liberty that gives the flower 

Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume. 

Of liberty, then, the distinguishing characteristic is 
energy. It takes off restraint ; arouses the soul ; elicits 
its dormant powers. This is the secret of our country's 
unprecedented advancement during the last hundred 
years. To trace in detail the evidences of that advance- 
ment is impossible. The results of those years seem 
more like magic than reality. What must that liberty 
be worth that within a period so brief has given to our 
country a career so brilliant, a growth so wonderful, a 
progress so unparalleled, from thirteen feeble colonies 
to thirty-seven states ; from less than four to thirty-nine 
millions of people ; from a state of colonial bondage and 
insignificance to the rank of a leading power among the 
governments of the earth, with correspondingly rapid 
strides in the arts and sciences, in education and inven- 
tion — in all, indeed, that pertains to the moral, intel- 



494 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

lectual and physical well-being of a people. Of the 
men of the century I cannot speak : enough to know 
that it is illustrious with the names and emblazoned 
with the deeds of George Washington and Abraham 
Lincoln. 

It may. indeed, be said that now, at least in our 
country, is the struggle of liberty ended, its destiny 
achieved, its unfolding consummated ; that henceforth 
it has nothing to hope, nothing to fear. Nay, the spirit 
of liberty is not at rest ; its struggles are not all over, 
nor its dangers all past. It has a mighty problem yet 
to work out on this continent, a problem, indeed, of 
the magnitude of which we perhaps can have only the 
faintest conception. In the progress of the unfolding 
of this spirit in this, the land of its adoption, it has al- 
ready given the world some intimation of what it is 
capable. In the mammoth results of the past, we have 
the preludings of what is to come. With all inex- 
haustible resources of life and vigor at its command, 
and all its energies stirred up and fully developed, what 
shapes of beauty, what forms of symmetry, what struc- 
tures of grandeur will this tireless spirit yet originate, 
with which to adorn and render illustrious its pathway 
through the on-coming ages ? Over what a magnificent 
realm will it yet bear sway ? Over what countless mil- 
lions will it yet fling its benedictions? How, in the 
process of the unfolding of this spirit, will it yet assert 
its inherent dignity, and with itself linking all kindred 
agencies, lift them into renown? How will it yet cast 
off all hindering weights and break down all resisting 
forces, and, disencumbered and forever enfranchised, 
bound forth at once and through all the centuries to 
greet that splendid destiny inscribed for it by the hand 
of the Eternal on the dazzling future ? 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 495 

But as this spirit rushes on in the line of its destiny, 
let it not forsake the guide of its youth. For, its orig- 
inal alliance with the principles of the Bible dissolved, 
a disastrous failure can only be the result. When that 
dread hour shall come, if come it must, then let them 
which be in this country flee into another, for as the 
lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto 
the west, so, also, shall be the coming of our national 
degradation. This alliance dissolved, and we as a na- 
tion are shorn of our strength- — our noble constitution 
would be a meaningless scroll, our laws without vitality 
or power. That proud bird, the symbol of our nation's 
strength and grandeur, would be crest-fallen, clipped 
her golden wings ; or, lightning-scathed, would hasten 
her escape from the swift and sweeping tempest, shaking 
the pillars that support the tottering wreck of a heaven- 
blasted republic. 

More disastrous, indeed, to the cause of liberty 
would be a divorce between it and the principles of the 
Bible, than was the divorce between Rehoboam and the 
tried counselors who had stood before Solomon, his 
father, when he forsook their sage admonitions for the 
ill-timed advice of the young men whom he had gath- 
ered around him. Then went up from all that suffering 
land the startling cry of outraged freedom, '-What por- 
tion have we in David ? Neither have we inheritance 
in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel ! " And 
there are not wanting those in our country, fitly repre- 
sented by the young men of the times of Rehoboam, 
who would fain inflate the spirit of liberty with the pre- 
sumption that it is now become so strong that it can 
walk the giddy heights of power independently of its 
ancient counselor — the Word of God. Ah ! this sounds 
much like the counsels of youth ! 



496 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

Just here, then, with all the emphasis of which I am 
capable, would I insist on the necessity of maintaining 
and strengthening, even with adamantine bonds, the 
relation existing between our Bible and our liberties. 
Many are the hostile forces now combining for the 
sundering of this time-honored relation ; and, indeed, 
it is only from the sundering of this relation that we 
have anything to fear. Against all other calamities 
we are comparatively secure. Any serious interna- 
tional difficulty is of all most improbable. Not that 
foreign powers are particularly in love with us, as cer- 
tain developments during our late troubles preclude the 
possibility of supposing. Doubtless jealous eyes are 
upon us. God never lighted up such a brilliant sun in 
the political heavens for darkness-loving eyes to gaze 
upon unblinkingly. Such an aspiring eagle never plumed 
her wings and spread them over half the globe in her 
majestic flight without alarming the fears and exciting 
the screams of every bird of feebler pinion. Slaves 
will envy us : tyrants must hate us.. Yet not in this do 
we recognize any source of danger, any cause of alarm. 
The birthright of this continent is political independ- 
ence. Of this none can despoil her. The true source 
of peril to the cause of American liberty is not in for- 
eign jealousies or in foreign hate, but in national dere- 
liction and indigenous crime : in the subtle forces of 
atheism, infidelity and practical ungodliness, combin- 
ing with the machinations of an irresponsible politico- 
religious hierarchy, for the sundering of the sacred link 
that binds that liberty in closest alliance with the Word 
of God. Such are the only agencies that can effect our 
country's ruin— agencies hiding their real character 
under the deceitful appearance of fidelity to our national 
colors, until they shall have sufficiently augmented their 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 497 

forces and matured their dark designs ; then shall the 
last bending barrier be dissolved, and the impending 
catastrophe precipitated. Already has the unnatural 
crusade upon the Bible begun — the fact cannot be de- 
nied. Already have the hostile powers confederated 
for effective action. Stroke after stroke has already 
been leveled. The earth is now disgorging her subter- 
ranean fires, and the reiterated sensations of the ap- 
proaching earthquake have already startled the nation's 
repose. It is now, in the nineteenth century, and in 
our country especially, beginning to be suspected that 
the Bible is a dangerous book ; that it is sectarian : that 
there are some places from which it must be excluded ; 
that God's right of way on this continent must be 
subordinated to legal enactments : that it is not 
enough that Christ's vicegerent should seal the lips of 
men, but that God himself must be dumb in the pres- 
ence of His potent interdict ! Politicians and leading 
religious journalists of the country succumb. £< Yes," 
they respond, " the Bible is sectarian ; must be 
restrained — put under law." Gentlemen ! the Bible 
was here before you were born I It was here in 
advance of us all. It exists by primordial right. 
Legislate, if you will, the light out of my eye, the air 
out of my lung, but the truth of the Bible out of my 
heart, never ! The aim of the assailants cannot be 
misunderstood. It is simply to subvert the authority 
of the Bible ; to limit its distribution ; to monopolize 
its interpretation, or to neutralize its power, and thus 
to overthrow our liberties by undermining the only sure 
foundation on which they repose. Nothing of this sort 
intended / What, then, means the high-handed inter- 
diction of that Bible from our public schools? What 
mean the Ecumenical Council and its monstrous dogma 



498 THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 

of Papal infallibility, and the implied subversion of the 
conscience of the world to its arbitrary and blasphemous 
decree ? Where were civil liberty or any of the insti- 
tutions of a free government confronted with the as- 
sumptions of such an infamous, audacious power ? 
What matters who holds the ballot if the Pope holds the 
conscience of him who casts it ? Down, then, with all 
such usurpations ! Instead of an infallible Pope, give 
us an infallible Bible! All through the land are dif- 
fused the elements antagonistic to the spirit of our free 
institutions ; their force is constantly augmenting by 
emigration from beyond the seas. The expatriated 
error of other lands is now flooding our shores ; and 
with this ever-increasing tide of emigration, setting in 
especially from all unchristian lands, there come also 
increasing perils to the cause of liberty, Unless, through 
the agency of the truth of a widely-disseminated Bible, 
the elements thus introduced are controlled and rapidly 
assimilated to the spirit that pervades our government 
and our laws. 

Where, then, is our hope? Where but in the un 
broken alliance of our liberties with the eternal and 
all-conquering principles of the Bible. To strengthen 
this alliance, to bind our liberties to this rock with 
cords that can never be broken, should be the ambition 
and aim of every patriot and of every Christian. 

Where, then, is our hope ? Where but in the un- 
broken alliance of our liberties with the eternal and 
all-conquering principles of the Bible. To strengthen 
this alliance, to bind our liberties to this rock with 
cords that can never be broken, should be the ambition 
and aim of every patriot and of every Christian. 

To all who co-operate for this result, there is an en- 
couraging outlook. The word of God is now gradu- 



THE VOICE OUT OF THE CLOUD. 499 

ally asserting its legitimate place of authority and 
power in the intellect and conscience of the world. The 
barriers intercepting its progress are fast giving way. 
Its voice is now going out into all the earth, and its 
words to the end of the world. The Bible is now in 
the possession of the people. There is blood on its 
clasps, but light and life on its page. It is stirring 
the nations. Spain is throbbing with its life. Italy 
responds to its quickening power. There is a Bible 
depository at Rome. The secular authority of the 
Pope is gone forever. His temporal possessions are 
alienated : and, as things are now going on, it does 
really seem that his holiness would soon be able to 
sing, with all the fervor and heavenly- mindedness of 
the most unworldly of the old Methodist itinerant 
preachers — 

"No foot of land do 1 possess, 
Nor cottage in this wilderness — 
A poor wayfaring man." 



"MAF 19 1900 



#3 

V 



